There are a lot of assumptions in your list about what people do with their characters and party composition. But I am not disagreeing with the fact that Berserker has good abilities out side of Frenzy.
My assumptions about the character are based on some level of common sense optimization. If your Barbarian decides to dump Strength and max out Intelligence, for instance, then you're right, all bets are off. I am applying an 80/20 rule here in the sense that I believe at least 80% of Barbarians are likely to want to focus on Strength, and that 80% of parties will have members that can cover most skills other than Athletics better than the Barbarian. Will there be exceptions? Sure. Does the fact that there are exceptions undermine the validity of the argument? Not really. People do indeed greatly exaggerate the degree of debilitation arising from a single level of exhaustion on a Barbarian, which is not, by anyone's measure, a class that specializes in skills. Athletics, Perception, and Initiative are more than likely your most important ability checks, and the class provides ways to counteract disadvantage for each of these checks.
Quote from Katharsis>> Also they seem to ignore the 2 other abilities of the subclass which are actually really powerful.
They ate actually not, so first up for the mindless rage: fear is not that powerful of a effect and also rarely comes up, any barbarian easily counters the effects of fear with reckless attack and charm effects rarely work for either party as either party has advantage on most charm saving throws when your in combat, or your a elf and second one is meh it makes you burn your reaction on one attack, now at lower levels it would be great, but its level 14 when you get it you got other shit to worry about, like is that a wall with a bunch of slits? Oh no a bunch of kobolds just fire bolted me to death cuz I picked berserker and I have 2 levels of exhaustion because it's the only useful thing I can do at this point in the game: take a level of exhaustion and attack 3 times making everyone else do a long rest, oh look the fighter over there can do 3 attacks normally then action surge, of I wanted more attacks why didn't I just pick fighter and put one level in barbarian?
Suggestion does not mind control you, come to think of it most charm spells do not control what you do, sometime it says something alone the lines of "you have to make a melee attack to a friendly creature in range" but it doesn't say you have to move towards them, you can even move away from your allies. The spell suggestion is all but useless on players, how none of your allies not had dispell magic is beyond me, on top of that you repeat the saving throw and furthermore the request has to sound reasonable to your character, telling you to attack your best friend would not work.
There are very few charm spells that work as intended, enemies abound is one of them
Also still going on about charm and fear effects they are far and few inbetween, more creatures able to use magic focus on damage effects and by the time they start showing you should have some type of reasonable counter such as counter spell or dispell magic, counter charm, paladin auras or even slapping your mind controlled friend. Its is just that there are so many ways players can deal with charm and fear effects it's not a very strong effect to be immune to them, having resistance to all damage, double carry weight, instilling disadvantage to everything that doesn't attack you, having advantage when someone is close to you, being more skilled at stuff, causing damage to creatures around you, extra damage and not needing diamons to res you, all great effects. Immune to fear and charm not so great
Both as a player and as a DM, my experiences gel with those of @Katharsis. Increased carrying capacity is a ribbon. Charm and fear effects are among the easiest ways to stop a Barbarian in his/her tracks. I said this before, but I'll repeat it for those with selective attention spans:
Go pick a random monster that you know has a charm effect, like a Harpy, and go read its entry in the MM. You'll see that it doesn't grant advantage to saving throws just because you are hostile. Nor does the Suggestion spell, nor Otto's Irresistible Dance, nor any of a number of other spells which cannot be used against targets that are immune to charm effects. Also, read up on the Fear spell while you're at it. It doesn't just impose the frightened condition on you, it forces you to use the Dash action every turn while you are frightened. Furthermore, smart dragons won't just stand next to you when they're using Frightful Presence. It has a range of like 120 ft. for adult dragons. At best, you'll have stand back and throw javelins at it, and you can't use Reckless attack with your ranged attacks. There are a ton of nasty abilities in the game which Mindless Rage helps you avoid.
The Berserker subclass is largely self-selecting. If you cannot see the nova potential of being able to land an extra Reckless GWM attack every turn for an entire encounter once per day, and if you are completely put off by the thought that you might fail a few ability checks afterwards, then you almost certainly lack the damn-the-torpedoes, risk vs. reward attitude you need to play an effective Berserker. The bard class might be better suited to your tastes, and it also offers you the perfect opportunity to wear sequins.
I certainly won't deny that Totem Warriors and Zealots are effective. Just because Totem Warriors are effective, however, does not mean that Berserkers are ineffective. They are good at different things. If you are a Polearm Master or a Dual Wielder, avoid the Berserker class. If you are using a greataxe, greatsword, or maul, if you plan to pick up GWM, and if you want to be a damage beast, then the Berserker is a solid choice. It will out-damage every other Barbarian build for one encounter per day, and once Retaliation kicks in, it will out-damage most Barbarian builds all day every day. If the flavor of Berserker fits most closely with what you envision for your character, then ignore all the theorycrafting naysayers and go play a Berserker. It's much better than people claim as long as you remember to save your Frenzy ability for when it counts.
Suggestion does not mind control you, come to think of it most charm spells do not control what you do, sometime it says something alone the lines of "you have to make a melee attack to a friendly creature in range" but it doesn't say you have to move towards them, you can even move away from your allies. The spell suggestion is all but useless on players, how none of your allies not had dispell magic is beyond me, on top of that you repeat the saving throw and furthermore the request has to sound reasonable to your character, telling you to attack your best friend would not work.
There are very few charm spells that work as intended, enemies abound is one of them
what? Suggestion is literally doing what is asked of you to the best of your abilities. So if I say walk a mile east, your character is walking a mile east. There are no other saving throws except the first one.
Also Enemies Abound clearly states you attack a random person because you think its an enemy. Do you not move towards bad guys to attack them? Because it sounds like your meta-gaming and cheating when you try to argue that. This one really got me agitated. I would call you out every time you would attack a real bad guy then.
If your Dominated thru dominate person you do whatever is asked. If it's attacking a party member you are going to attack that party member if you have to move you move to do it.
Also most monsters that use Charm have it as an ability and not the spell. Succubus's charm states it OBEYS all commands. So yea...
But with Rage Bonus and Great weapon master it is a lot more than just 1d6+10. A maul would be doing 3d6 + 24 and another 2d6 + 14 with your second attack so 5d6 + 38 per round. Not as many dice but far more consistent damage and in more than a single battle each day.
I think it just comes down to what you are looking for in the abilities. I personally don't like a mechanic that limits your abilities by creating a penalty for using it. If it were simply limited in the same manner as all the other abilities (ie once per rest or what ever) it would not bother me anywhere near as much.
I agree. It’s a classic tortoise vs. hare trade-off. Do you want to be able to nova spectacularly for one encounter per day, or are you willing to settle for less damage, as long as you can apply it to every encounter? It’s a matter of taste but it’s also a matter of how many encounters you expect to have in a typical day. I've seen many campaigns where the group averages only 3 or 4 encounters per day. Outside of a dungeon, it’s typically less than that. Inside a dungeon, it can be more. I’ve never been involved in a game that follows the DMG guideline of 6 to 8 encounters in a day, though I assume such games exist. If you are having that many encounters per day, the ability to nova once per day becomes less attractive.
I’d like to address the blanket contention so many people seem to make about Frenzy, which is that one level of exhaustion is so utterly debilitating as to make the ability worthless. .... [I have cut a way most of the text because either you need someone in the party to help you or: ] Let someone else handle this. [With Barbarian not being too useful in ability checks, it's painful to see the character become almost irrelevant outside combat. I don't mind my Barbarian to be bad at those things, yet I want to be able to succeed once in a while, so I can still keep trying to pursue different things than combat. Most parties develop into murder hobo's too fast anyways.]
All of these facts add up to one conclusion: if used judiciously, one use of Frenzy per day is well worth the cost. Combined with Mindless Rage and Retaliation, both of which are routinely ignored in these discussions, the Berserker is a fun and effective subclass.
I put the parts in bold what is bothering me the most about this class. At level 3 you get a once a day feature and you have to wait for level 6 for another useful feature. Granted, it is very useful but sadly it's a passive one. The last good feature comes at level 14. It just feels like this subclass isn't really allowing you to do much different things, it's just like a better Barbarian with a Nova option. Which is good of course but most Players like to enable special abilities to influence the game. We have gotten used to this effects because of video games, I believe.
In my campaign we have started from level 1 Diving into Eberron. It has taken us about a year to reach level 6. I don't want to wait that long for a subclass to become appealing.
I have to agree with you that Frenzy doesn't feel as bad, if you treat it like a once per day feature. Yet in 5th Edition I love how they moved away from penalizing player choices: no more racial negatives on abilities, getting to choose to add extra damage after you hit and the likes. Thus far I only came across Frenzy which can backfire so significantly or comes with a hefty price: you fly into a Frenzy Rage but somehow you drop out of rage. Sure your can restart the Frenzy rage but will be at level 2 exhaustion afterwards. The other thing is: if you ever are in a environment were you get exhausted: like crossing a desert, mountain pass or you need to make forced marches, you primal feature is useless.
So I would have preferred Frenzy to be limited per long rest (which I would increase +1 at 6th and/or 10th level because Retaliation is that good) and maybe give you something else as a bonus. Like Re-Roll weapon damage dice for # times per short rest and # = CON bonus, or make it even more good by allowing to max out 1 weapon damage dice instead. Which would make a Great-Axe that more interesting, and it is so much more iconic for a Berserker. And because not most people are so level-headed as you and don't analyse the best way to handle Frenzy, they are scared off by the negative side of Frenzy and forget about the other goodies.
And the 'Zerker exhaustion is hard to work around - Frenzy is great in "boss battles" but awful for any situation where you don't get to long rest afterward. This is compounded by both the difficulty of reducing exhaustion levels (between long rests, your only option is Greater Restoration) and the brutal nature of even one level of exhaustion. Also, until you get Persistent Rage, a clever foe can figure out ways to end your Frenzy (though Mindless Rage does help mitigate this a bit), putting you even more awkwardly off-foot than if you were simply Raging.
The only thing I've been able to come up with is that the advantage on Strength ability checks while raging offsets the first level. It isn't much, especially since that means "oh, you don't have advantage or disadvantage to grapple/shove", and that's assuming you don't rage to ensure you make a long jump or something.
It also means you have advantage against some jerk that tries to pull your weapon from your hands.
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DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
If the barbarian is regularly suffering from environmental exhaustion then the rest of your party better be fearing death and looking for the fastest way out at every opportunity because that place is going to quickly kill everybody. That's not a place to be worrying about Frenzy because none of the rest of your party is going to even be up for combat and may need to be carried out in quick order.
Exhaustion can be such a pain in the ass and really turns people off, but you can get away with some truly awesome combat and combat RP moments with a Berserker that Totem would never get away with. I also find Berserker can be a more memorable character if played in a unique or clever way by the player.
I do crazy dmg with my lv5 Half-Orc Beserker Barbarian. Took GWM at lv4 so I wipe through the small stuff without using frenzy and save it for the big fights. Being able to do up to 27dmg per swing, 51 on a crit, and swinging 3 times with advantage is huge. I’ll take the disadvantage on ability checks if need be.
I started playing a Half-Orc Barbarian Berserker in a homebrew recently. My DM had everyone start at lvl. 5, and so far, Frenzy and Rage have not been that big of an irritation for me. The disadvantage can sure be annoying, but otherwise, I'm really happy with my character. I'm looking forward to discovering what I can do with my character.
I started playing a Half-Orc Barbarian Berserker in a homebrew recently. My DM had everyone start at lvl. 5, and so far, Frenzy and Rage have not been that big of an irritation for me. The disadvantage can sure be annoying, but otherwise, I'm really happy with my character. I'm looking forward to discovering what I can do with my character.
Your a level 5 barbarian, you have all of your tools, your not really getting anything new from the main class and berserk gives you next to nothing, you get fear and charm immunity while raging witch is kind of dumb as most charms will not work when you are hostile they dont work anyways and you can counter most fear effects with reckless attack. All the other subclasses gives you tons of utility effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, get higher AC or just effect that change battle flow or just straight up make it ok for you to die if you have a cleric (using resurrection spells on you dont need material components) this is why berserkers sits at the very bottom because most barbarians pick up great weapon master witch gives you a bonus attacks when you kill something or land a crit.
I started playing a Half-Orc Barbarian Berserker in a homebrew recently. My DM had everyone start at lvl. 5, and so far, Frenzy and Rage have not been that big of an irritation for me. The disadvantage can sure be annoying, but otherwise, I'm really happy with my character. I'm looking forward to discovering what I can do with my character.
Your a level 5 barbarian, you have all of your tools, your not really getting anything new from the main class and berserk gives you next to nothing, you get fear and charm immunity while raging witch is kind of dumb as most charms will not work when you are hostile they dont work anyways and you can counter most fear effects with reckless attack. All the other subclasses gives you tons of utility effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, get higher AC or just effect that change battle flow or just straight up make it ok for you to die if you have a cleric (using resurrection spells on you dont need material components) this is why berserkers sits at the very bottom because most barbarians pick up great weapon master witch gives you a bonus attacks when you kill something or land a crit.
Almost every high-level encounter has Fear or Charm of some kind - including every single adult and up Dragon in the game. I’ve seen you quote that it’s worthless multiple times and it’s blatantly wrong. A DC 19 Terrifying Presence is going to make every other Barbarian absolutely worthless for a LOT of rounds.
With Frenzy, you can still wield a shield because you don’t need Two-Weapon Fighting to get the extra attack. That’s up to 5 extra AC, so yeah - Berserkers also get more AC so you’re blatantly wrong there too.
And I’m tired of “A Barb with GWM is equal to a Frenzy Berserker”. Let my Berserker take a Feat too then - I’ll take Sentry. Now when I Frenzy I get three attacks at level 5, plus a fourth if someone decides to attack my fellow tanker. Follow that up with Retaliation later and you are all but guaranteed 4 attacks every round. That’s with EQUAL Feats. You don’t get to gimp one class when doing a comparison.
With GWM, your chance of getting a bonus attack is around 18.5%, or one in every 5 rounds of combat if you use Reckless Attack constantly. That’s a lot of defense to give up just so you have one extra attack every few rounds. Without Reckless Attack, it’s a 10% chance, or one in every 10 rounds.
I started playing a Half-Orc Barbarian Berserker in a homebrew recently. My DM had everyone start at lvl. 5, and so far, Frenzy and Rage have not been that big of an irritation for me. The disadvantage can sure be annoying, but otherwise, I'm really happy with my character. I'm looking forward to discovering what I can do with my character.
Your a level 5 barbarian, you have all of your tools, your not really getting anything new from the main class and berserk gives you next to nothing, you get fear and charm immunity while raging witch is kind of dumb as most charms will not work when you are hostile they dont work anyways and you can counter most fear effects with reckless attack. All the other subclasses gives you tons of utility effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, get higher AC or just effect that change battle flow or just straight up make it ok for you to die if you have a cleric (using resurrection spells on you dont need material components) this is why berserkers sits at the very bottom because most barbarians pick up great weapon master witch gives you a bonus attacks when you kill something or land a crit.
EDIT: It seems like Brewski ninja'd me and has pointed out the same kind of criticism on this post.
I don't get where this answer is coming from, it seems to me that you might have not seen certain aspects of the game. So do not to invalidate your opinions, I rather want to offer some new perspectives (or old if you have read through this whole thread).
Let me warn for the wall of text incoming.
First off: Mindless Rage is nothing to sneeze at. Monsters don't all use spells as described in the PHB (Player Handbook). Many monsters have charm of fear abilities, that do not require to be used on non-hostile characters. Which wouldn't made sense for monsters, as they are designed to be opponents of the party.
Once you have seen what a Frenzied Berserker can dish out as damage, you don't want that kind of whirlwind of destruction let loose on your party. It's also very RP (Roleplay) satisfying that your are just too angry to be charmed by that Beholder. Much like in the Conan movie with Schwarzenegger. For the sake of this argument I am going through the Monster Manual, where there are plenty of monsters who can charm you, even on CR1: the Dryad has a DC 14 Wisdom Saving throw, which will have 65% chance of failure with 10-11 Wisdom Attribute. And you only get to make that saving throw again if the Dryad or it's allies try to harm your character, for the next 24 hours! There is also the CR 1 Harpy with their Luring Song, which is only DC 11 Wisdom but has the power of luring into dangerous terrain if you fail the save again before jumping off a cliff towards the harpy.
Even Charm Person (level 1 enchantment) can be cast on hostile creatures, you only gain advantage on the saving throw if the caster allows it's allies to attack you or your party first. So an intelligent caster will set it up to have this cast first or simply have it's minions take a defense stance first or try to trick you into trusting him.
Onto the fear topic, sure the frightened state infers disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, while in sight of the source of the fear. Yet most fear effects induce more than just the frightened status. They typically make you keep away from you source of fear.
Yet Reckless attack only makes you negate the disadvantage on the attack roles but also gives all enemies advantage on their attack yours vs you. So it's not a free pass to negate frightened status, it might take a very negative outcome on your HP pool.
So yes other subclasses give you different options, that's right. Berserker's Frenzy gives you the option of once per day (with limited downside) to gain an bonus action extra attack, when you are raging. No other prerequisites need to be met. Mindless Rage offer a very good protection vs charm and fear-like effects. Which is particularly interesting if the party has no divination spell caster to protect against these effects. Intimidating Presence is more lackluster, especially in combat but for role-playing it seems fun. I would Home-brew this to be a bonus action, rather than a whole action, to maintain the frightened status. I would also use CON mod instead of Charisma on the Save DC because it's presence, not performance or gaze and I want it to be actually useful. Retaliation is perfect capstone feature: together with Sentinel Feature, this creates a catch 22 situation: attack the Berserker => get smacked, attack another creature than the Berserker => get smacked and if your try to run away from the Berserker => get smacked!
Granted, the Berserker subclass doesn't look as sexy on paper that others might but it certainly isn't the bottom of the barrel. It's much like the Champion subclass for fighter: it puts more Barbarian into your barbarian.
On Great Weapon Master: sure this is a feature any Martial class can pick up. Yet the extra bonus action attack is conditional. You can't always line up the damage in such a way that you are the one to finish off creatures, the initiative order plays a role, your team mates and just luck plays a role. As for critical hits, they only occur 5%, or 9,5% with reckless attack on each attack. So with two attacks, that's almost 1/5 turns. I can't see how this compares to having the ability to have all but the first round of your rage this bonus action attack guaranteed.
Furthermore, Frenzy does have a good synergy with GWM: you know get to attack three reckless power attacks, so more chance of landing that boosted damage. There is also the synergy of getting some bonus extra attacks while not in a Frenzy.
I get where you are coming from: at first the Berserker looks kinda meh, but reducing this subclass to just one of it's downsides, is not useful. You don't do that to other subclasses, do you?
You can say, but Totem Warrior doesn't really get a reliable way to deal extra damage (just like Ancestral doesn't). Or Zealot has no tools for drawing agro or controlling the battlefield.
To me Storm Herald and Battlerager are more of the bottom subclasses. Battleragers extra damage and retribution should scale with leveling, like martial dice or something. The rest of the subclass are some neat features.
[EDIT due to the fact that I misread the rule on storm aura's]
The Storm Herald aura's are not awe inspiring, yes they are scaled with leveling but still, only have an impact when you spend a bonus action on them. Of course Barbarians typically don't get to spend a bonus action, so yeah, just a little boost that might be relevant. Also I would allow to change environment on a long (or even short) rest, so this subclass has more versatility and truly feels like a master of the elements. Raging storm seems nice but a little on the weak side compared to other level 14 features. You typically need to use a reaction but the opponent still gets a save for half damage or no effect. Which is kind of okay as you use CON MOD for the saving DC.
Sure, compared to Retaliation, that also uses the reaction and still needs to hit to have an effect. Though it does have the benefit of adding strength MOD and possible Rage bonus to the damage inflicted, and has the chance of critically hitting.
So quite comparable, yet Retaliation has a chance to high-roll and you can boost it by improving your weapon.
The real saving grace for this class is the 7 temp HP (at 24 Con) each round. A single Ancient Red Dragon round:
Bite 21 piercing + 14 fire —> reduced to 3 piercing and 14 fire (using 7 temp HP)
2 Claws 17 slashing —> reduced to 16 slashing total.
So the average damage each round will be around 33 damage. Which is equal to a Bear Totem Barbarian.
Versus a less damaging enemy, you really start to get the temporary HP to work for you. A Hill Giant will only be able to muster about 11 damage per round against you. An Orc or similar? Literally cannot hurt you.
I agree Battlerager is underpowered, but I have yet to put it to practice to see how it would actually hold up in a pitched battle.
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There are a lot of assumptions in your list about what people do with their characters and party composition. But I am not disagreeing with the fact that Berserker has good abilities out side of Frenzy.
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My assumptions about the character are based on some level of common sense optimization. If your Barbarian decides to dump Strength and max out Intelligence, for instance, then you're right, all bets are off. I am applying an 80/20 rule here in the sense that I believe at least 80% of Barbarians are likely to want to focus on Strength, and that 80% of parties will have members that can cover most skills other than Athletics better than the Barbarian. Will there be exceptions? Sure. Does the fact that there are exceptions undermine the validity of the argument? Not really. People do indeed greatly exaggerate the degree of debilitation arising from a single level of exhaustion on a Barbarian, which is not, by anyone's measure, a class that specializes in skills. Athletics, Perception, and Initiative are more than likely your most important ability checks, and the class provides ways to counteract disadvantage for each of these checks.
I fully agree. Mindless Rage and Retaliation are both better than what Totem Barbs get at 6th and 14th level.
They ate actually not, so first up for the mindless rage: fear is not that powerful of a effect and also rarely comes up, any barbarian easily counters the effects of fear with reckless attack and charm effects rarely work for either party as either party has advantage on most charm saving throws when your in combat, or your a elf and second one is meh it makes you burn your reaction on one attack, now at lower levels it would be great, but its level 14 when you get it you got other shit to worry about, like is that a wall with a bunch of slits? Oh no a bunch of kobolds just fire bolted me to death cuz I picked berserker and I have 2 levels of exhaustion because it's the only useful thing I can do at this point in the game: take a level of exhaustion and attack 3 times making everyone else do a long rest, oh look the fighter over there can do 3 attacks normally then action surge, of I wanted more attacks why didn't I just pick fighter and put one level in barbarian?
Suggestion does not mind control you, come to think of it most charm spells do not control what you do, sometime it says something alone the lines of "you have to make a melee attack to a friendly creature in range" but it doesn't say you have to move towards them, you can even move away from your allies. The spell suggestion is all but useless on players, how none of your allies not had dispell magic is beyond me, on top of that you repeat the saving throw and furthermore the request has to sound reasonable to your character, telling you to attack your best friend would not work.
There are very few charm spells that work as intended, enemies abound is one of them
Also still going on about charm and fear effects they are far and few inbetween, more creatures able to use magic focus on damage effects and by the time they start showing you should have some type of reasonable counter such as counter spell or dispell magic, counter charm, paladin auras or even slapping your mind controlled friend. Its is just that there are so many ways players can deal with charm and fear effects it's not a very strong effect to be immune to them, having resistance to all damage, double carry weight, instilling disadvantage to everything that doesn't attack you, having advantage when someone is close to you, being more skilled at stuff, causing damage to creatures around you, extra damage and not needing diamons to res you, all great effects. Immune to fear and charm not so great
Both as a player and as a DM, my experiences gel with those of @Katharsis. Increased carrying capacity is a ribbon. Charm and fear effects are among the easiest ways to stop a Barbarian in his/her tracks. I said this before, but I'll repeat it for those with selective attention spans:
Go pick a random monster that you know has a charm effect, like a Harpy, and go read its entry in the MM. You'll see that it doesn't grant advantage to saving throws just because you are hostile. Nor does the Suggestion spell, nor Otto's Irresistible Dance, nor any of a number of other spells which cannot be used against targets that are immune to charm effects. Also, read up on the Fear spell while you're at it. It doesn't just impose the frightened condition on you, it forces you to use the Dash action every turn while you are frightened. Furthermore, smart dragons won't just stand next to you when they're using Frightful Presence. It has a range of like 120 ft. for adult dragons. At best, you'll have stand back and throw javelins at it, and you can't use Reckless attack with your ranged attacks. There are a ton of nasty abilities in the game which Mindless Rage helps you avoid.
The Berserker subclass is largely self-selecting. If you cannot see the nova potential of being able to land an extra Reckless GWM attack every turn for an entire encounter once per day, and if you are completely put off by the thought that you might fail a few ability checks afterwards, then you almost certainly lack the damn-the-torpedoes, risk vs. reward attitude you need to play an effective Berserker. The bard class might be better suited to your tastes, and it also offers you the perfect opportunity to wear sequins.
I certainly won't deny that Totem Warriors and Zealots are effective. Just because Totem Warriors are effective, however, does not mean that Berserkers are ineffective. They are good at different things. If you are a Polearm Master or a Dual Wielder, avoid the Berserker class. If you are using a greataxe, greatsword, or maul, if you plan to pick up GWM, and if you want to be a damage beast, then the Berserker is a solid choice. It will out-damage every other Barbarian build for one encounter per day, and once Retaliation kicks in, it will out-damage most Barbarian builds all day every day. If the flavor of Berserker fits most closely with what you envision for your character, then ignore all the theorycrafting naysayers and go play a Berserker. It's much better than people claim as long as you remember to save your Frenzy ability for when it counts.
what? Suggestion is literally doing what is asked of you to the best of your abilities. So if I say walk a mile east, your character is walking a mile east. There are no other saving throws except the first one.
Also Enemies Abound clearly states you attack a random person because you think its an enemy. Do you not move towards bad guys to attack them? Because it sounds like your meta-gaming and cheating when you try to argue that. This one really got me agitated. I would call you out every time you would attack a real bad guy then.
If your Dominated thru dominate person you do whatever is asked. If it's attacking a party member you are going to attack that party member if you have to move you move to do it.
Also most monsters that use Charm have it as an ability and not the spell. Succubus's charm states it OBEYS all commands. So yea...
Had to clear up my drink when I read this. That tickled me.
I put the parts in bold what is bothering me the most about this class. At level 3 you get a once a day feature and you have to wait for level 6 for another useful feature. Granted, it is very useful but sadly it's a passive one. The last good feature comes at level 14.
It just feels like this subclass isn't really allowing you to do much different things, it's just like a better Barbarian with a Nova option. Which is good of course but most Players like to enable special abilities to influence the game. We have gotten used to this effects because of video games, I believe.
In my campaign we have started from level 1 Diving into Eberron. It has taken us about a year to reach level 6. I don't want to wait that long for a subclass to become appealing.
I have to agree with you that Frenzy doesn't feel as bad, if you treat it like a once per day feature. Yet in 5th Edition I love how they moved away from penalizing player choices: no more racial negatives on abilities, getting to choose to add extra damage after you hit and the likes. Thus far I only came across Frenzy which can backfire so significantly or comes with a hefty price: you fly into a Frenzy Rage but somehow you drop out of rage. Sure your can restart the Frenzy rage but will be at level 2 exhaustion afterwards.
The other thing is: if you ever are in a environment were you get exhausted: like crossing a desert, mountain pass or you need to make forced marches, you primal feature is useless.
So I would have preferred Frenzy to be limited per long rest (which I would increase +1 at 6th and/or 10th level because Retaliation is that good) and maybe give you something else as a bonus. Like Re-Roll weapon damage dice for # times per short rest and # = CON bonus, or make it even more good by allowing to max out 1 weapon damage dice instead. Which would make a Great-Axe that more interesting, and it is so much more iconic for a Berserker.
And because not most people are so level-headed as you and don't analyse the best way to handle Frenzy, they are scared off by the negative side of Frenzy and forget about the other goodies.
A well-stated opinion, @El_Jairo.
It also means you have advantage against some jerk that tries to pull your weapon from your hands.
DM: Are you sure?
Wizard: Yes. I cast the Wish spell and I wish that everybody loves me!
DM: You transform into an irresistible, magnificent feast. It was so great, all who participated in devouring you tell of the joy they felt with tears in their eyes and all who hear the tale only feel sorrow that they weren't there to eat.
If the barbarian is regularly suffering from environmental exhaustion then the rest of your party better be fearing death and looking for the fastest way out at every opportunity because that place is going to quickly kill everybody. That's not a place to be worrying about Frenzy because none of the rest of your party is going to even be up for combat and may need to be carried out in quick order.
Exhaustion can be such a pain in the ass and really turns people off, but you can get away with some truly awesome combat and combat RP moments with a Berserker that Totem would never get away with. I also find Berserker can be a more memorable character if played in a unique or clever way by the player.
I do crazy dmg with my lv5 Half-Orc Beserker Barbarian. Took GWM at lv4 so I wipe through the small stuff without using frenzy and save it for the big fights. Being able to do up to 27dmg per swing, 51 on a crit, and swinging 3 times with advantage is huge. I’ll take the disadvantage on ability checks if need be.
I started playing a Half-Orc Barbarian Berserker in a homebrew recently. My DM had everyone start at lvl. 5, and so far, Frenzy and Rage have not been that big of an irritation for me. The disadvantage can sure be annoying, but otherwise, I'm really happy with my character. I'm looking forward to discovering what I can do with my character.
Your a level 5 barbarian, you have all of your tools, your not really getting anything new from the main class and berserk gives you next to nothing, you get fear and charm immunity while raging witch is kind of dumb as most charms will not work when you are hostile they dont work anyways and you can counter most fear effects with reckless attack. All the other subclasses gives you tons of utility effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, get higher AC or just effect that change battle flow or just straight up make it ok for you to die if you have a cleric (using resurrection spells on you dont need material components) this is why berserkers sits at the very bottom because most barbarians pick up great weapon master witch gives you a bonus attacks when you kill something or land a crit.
Almost every high-level encounter has Fear or Charm of some kind - including every single adult and up Dragon in the game. I’ve seen you quote that it’s worthless multiple times and it’s blatantly wrong. A DC 19 Terrifying Presence is going to make every other Barbarian absolutely worthless for a LOT of rounds.
With Frenzy, you can still wield a shield because you don’t need Two-Weapon Fighting to get the extra attack. That’s up to 5 extra AC, so yeah - Berserkers also get more AC so you’re blatantly wrong there too.
And I’m tired of “A Barb with GWM is equal to a Frenzy Berserker”. Let my Berserker take a Feat too then - I’ll take Sentry. Now when I Frenzy I get three attacks at level 5, plus a fourth if someone decides to attack my fellow tanker. Follow that up with Retaliation later and you are all but guaranteed 4 attacks every round. That’s with EQUAL Feats. You don’t get to gimp one class when doing a comparison.
With GWM, your chance of getting a bonus attack is around 18.5%, or one in every 5 rounds of combat if you use Reckless Attack constantly. That’s a lot of defense to give up just so you have one extra attack every few rounds. Without Reckless Attack, it’s a 10% chance, or one in every 10 rounds.
EDIT: It seems like Brewski ninja'd me and has pointed out the same kind of criticism on this post.
I don't get where this answer is coming from, it seems to me that you might have not seen certain aspects of the game. So do not to invalidate your opinions, I rather want to offer some new perspectives (or old if you have read through this whole thread).
Let me warn for the wall of text incoming.
First off: Mindless Rage is nothing to sneeze at. Monsters don't all use spells as described in the PHB (Player Handbook). Many monsters have charm of fear abilities, that do not require to be used on non-hostile characters. Which wouldn't made sense for monsters, as they are designed to be opponents of the party.
Once you have seen what a Frenzied Berserker can dish out as damage, you don't want that kind of whirlwind of destruction let loose on your party. It's also very RP (Roleplay) satisfying that your are just too angry to be charmed by that Beholder. Much like in the Conan movie with Schwarzenegger.
For the sake of this argument I am going through the Monster Manual, where there are plenty of monsters who can charm you, even on CR1: the Dryad has a DC 14 Wisdom Saving throw, which will have 65% chance of failure with 10-11 Wisdom Attribute. And you only get to make that saving throw again if the Dryad or it's allies try to harm your character, for the next 24 hours!
There is also the CR 1 Harpy with their Luring Song, which is only DC 11 Wisdom but has the power of luring into dangerous terrain if you fail the save again before jumping off a cliff towards the harpy.
Even Charm Person (level 1 enchantment) can be cast on hostile creatures, you only gain advantage on the saving throw if the caster allows it's allies to attack you or your party first. So an intelligent caster will set it up to have this cast first or simply have it's minions take a defense stance first or try to trick you into trusting him.
Onto the fear topic, sure the frightened state infers disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, while in sight of the source of the fear. Yet most fear effects induce more than just the frightened status. They typically make you keep away from you source of fear.
Yet Reckless attack only makes you negate the disadvantage on the attack roles but also gives all enemies advantage on their attack yours vs you. So it's not a free pass to negate frightened status, it might take a very negative outcome on your HP pool.
So yes other subclasses give you different options, that's right. Berserker's Frenzy gives you the option of once per day (with limited downside) to gain an bonus action extra attack, when you are raging. No other prerequisites need to be met.
Mindless Rage offer a very good protection vs charm and fear-like effects. Which is particularly interesting if the party has no divination spell caster to protect against these effects.
Intimidating Presence is more lackluster, especially in combat but for role-playing it seems fun. I would Home-brew this to be a bonus action, rather than a whole action, to maintain the frightened status. I would also use CON mod instead of Charisma on the Save DC because it's presence, not performance or gaze and I want it to be actually useful.
Retaliation is perfect capstone feature: together with Sentinel Feature, this creates a catch 22 situation: attack the Berserker => get smacked, attack another creature than the Berserker => get smacked and if your try to run away from the Berserker => get smacked!
Granted, the Berserker subclass doesn't look as sexy on paper that others might but it certainly isn't the bottom of the barrel. It's much like the Champion subclass for fighter: it puts more Barbarian into your barbarian.
On Great Weapon Master: sure this is a feature any Martial class can pick up. Yet the extra bonus action attack is conditional. You can't always line up the damage in such a way that you are the one to finish off creatures, the initiative order plays a role, your team mates and just luck plays a role. As for critical hits, they only occur 5%, or 9,5% with reckless attack on each attack. So with two attacks, that's almost 1/5 turns. I can't see how this compares to having the ability to have all but the first round of your rage this bonus action attack guaranteed.
Furthermore, Frenzy does have a good synergy with GWM: you know get to attack three reckless power attacks, so more chance of landing that boosted damage. There is also the synergy of getting some bonus extra attacks while not in a Frenzy.
I get where you are coming from: at first the Berserker looks kinda meh, but reducing this subclass to just one of it's downsides, is not useful. You don't do that to other subclasses, do you?
You can say, but Totem Warrior doesn't really get a reliable way to deal extra damage (just like Ancestral doesn't). Or Zealot has no tools for drawing agro or controlling the battlefield.
To me Storm Herald and Battlerager are more of the bottom subclasses. Battleragers extra damage and retribution should scale with leveling, like martial dice or something. The rest of the subclass are some neat features.
[EDIT due to the fact that I misread the rule on storm aura's]
The Storm Herald aura's are not awe inspiring, yes they are scaled with leveling but still, only have an impact when you spend a bonus action on them. Of course Barbarians typically don't get to spend a bonus action, so yeah, just a little boost that might be relevant.
Also I would allow to change environment on a long (or even short) rest, so this subclass has more versatility and truly feels like a master of the elements.
Raging storm seems nice but a little on the weak side compared to other level 14 features. You typically need to use a reaction but the opponent still gets a save for half damage or no effect. Which is kind of okay as you use CON MOD for the saving DC.
Sure, compared to Retaliation, that also uses the reaction and still needs to hit to have an effect. Though it does have the benefit of adding strength MOD and possible Rage bonus to the damage inflicted, and has the chance of critically hitting.
So quite comparable, yet Retaliation has a chance to high-roll and you can boost it by improving your weapon.
The real saving grace for this class is the 7 temp HP (at 24 Con) each round. A single Ancient Red Dragon round:
Bite 21 piercing + 14 fire —> reduced to 3 piercing and 14 fire (using 7 temp HP)
2 Claws 17 slashing —> reduced to 16 slashing total.
So the average damage each round will be around 33 damage. Which is equal to a Bear Totem Barbarian.
Versus a less damaging enemy, you really start to get the temporary HP to work for you. A Hill Giant will only be able to muster about 11 damage per round against you. An Orc or similar? Literally cannot hurt you.
I agree Battlerager is underpowered, but I have yet to put it to practice to see how it would actually hold up in a pitched battle.