Because every other nova ability in the game simply requires the expenditure of a limited number of daily uses. Frenzy actually gives a debuff that penalizes you. Most people do not find the bonus power to be worth the cost, especially given that every other barbarian subpath gives you a 3rd level ability that goes off every time you rage.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Frenzied Rage is the equivalent of a nova ability. It deals a tremendous amount of damage that cannot be maintained for long and comes with a heavy cost. And yet, nobody seems to ever think of it in these terms. Why is that?
Because using a limited rescource is one thing, and using a limited rescource that also negatively impacts your further actions, potentially even days after you have used your ability, is another.
It's also an ability that is useless when you play a dual wielder, which is just so very strange to me - I would have thought that the archetypical Berserker would wanna swing an instrument of murder in BOTH of his or her hands?
I don't think its a WEAK ability - we all can agree that having additional attacks is one of the best things a weapon-wielding class can get from an ability.
Because every other nova ability in the game simply requires the expenditure of a limited number of daily uses. Frenzy actually gives a debuff that penalizes you. Most people do not find the bonus power to be worth the cost, especially given that every other barbarian subpath gives you a 3rd level ability that goes off every time you rage.
That's several disingenuous assertions.
First, we cannot reasonably assume that the people most-vociferously complaining about the Path of the Berserker are representive of the majority of the player base. They get attention, as negative criticism always does, for being loud. But that's not the same as being in the majority.
Second, not every Primal Path in the PHB, where the Berserker hails from, grants an ability which "goes off" every time the barbarian rages. And even the ones that do aren't flashy. The bear and wolf totems are passive and only matter situationally. They're only effective when the conditions are right. And the eagle totem is reliant on the bonus action, making it active instead of passive, and (like Frenzied Rage) takes an extra round to activate. That said, it grants greater utility than either of the previous totems. This makes it powerful, in comparison.
Subsequent books always add varying degrees of power creep. Even the "weaker" subclasses from SCAG were basically on-par with those in the PHB, which was fine. But later books, especially, make the PHB options look less appealing. But this doesn't mean any of the PHB options are bad. All of them add solid options to an already effective chassis. Subclasses are gravy.
Every nova in the game has an opportunity cost. Action Surge, when used for Attack, means you're not using it for every other action you could perform. (The same could also be said for Cunning Action, though it's not really a nova.) Every use of Divine Smite means you have one less spell slot to cast spells with, and those spells might be worth more in the long run. The paladin has to choose between short-term and long-term viability; or even just the flexibility in the current skirmish.
And Frenzied Rage means suffering Exhaustion as the cost for a "slow-burn nova" that lasts multiple turns. It can match, or exceed, the zealot's Divine Fury in 3-4 rounds in every tier of play. Over a long(er) fight, those extra attacks are worth more than almost anyone else's damage output. And how steep those penalties go relies on the player, so they have complete throttle control. It's not meant to be used every fight, or even just once every day. It's for big, epic fights.
There's a paladin subclass that gives this ability for free within 30' to all allies
The aura doesn't get a 30 foot radius until 18th level, which means that for practical purposes most PCs will never get it.
But part of the issue is that people act like Mindless Rage is some sort of unstoppable power that makes up for the fact that the Berserker's 3rd level ability is so lackluster.
It's still a 10' radius at level 7 meaning it can easily affect the whole party and a bunch of henchmen if you wanted. With no penalty and no "get out of jail free card" for a spellcaster not prepared to word it right. Saying the mindless rage is even close to that power is not very accurate so not sure I see your point there... There's even a level 1 spell that deals with a lot of the creatures that can deal these kinds of conditions just as easily.
Simply put, saying mindless rage doesn't do what it says it does is just weird when there's so many other ways to deal with it that I just can't understand why people use so much energy to make this ability that is in no way an unstoppable power or even superiour to many other abilites and in fact even easily replicated, worse than it is. It's just... Why? What's the point? And if the 3rd ability is so lackluster, why go through so much effort to make their next ability just as useless? I don't understand the amount of energy you guys need to put down just to interpret the abilities of a subclass you already say is bad, in the worst way possible instead of the other way around?
Berserker gets charmed, spellcaster (run by the DM because this isn't PVP, remember?) says "kill your friends". The berserker goes into a frenzy to slaughter his friends, but the moment of rage grants them a clear sight of whats going on, the true enemies, and they attack them... This is HORRIBLE OF THE PLAYER OMGZ
Vs.
DM: "I know exactly how to word the use of this spell or ability so you, the player, won't be able to use your class ability that only works in a few situations and at the same time will give you a point of exhaustion, slowly penalizing you and killing you. My spellcaster somehow knows you've got this power so he carefully words his suggestion so that you are powerless and will kill your friends". GREAT DM MUCH WOW!!
I mean, I CLEARLY said there are ways to get around it and even showed what spells could be used where it's not even an issue. Like Hypnotic pattern. The DM doesn't even HAVE to use the spells that the berserker can break out of. Yet the berserker is the bad player?
Me, personally, as a DM would have gone "Wow, that's awesome, you sure ruined my plans there, cool" if a player did it. But Idk I guess I'm a bad DM for letting the players use their cool abilites the way they are written even if it ruins my encounter. I should better myself.
Also, before anyone complains about those examples, again I've already stated there are ways to get around it and if the situation instead was the same but the caster had said "Run" or "Run and get help" or something similar, then of course they wouldn't have any good reason to rage. This is a whole other situation. Also just for the record, if I was in this situation as a player and was not a berserker specifically, and someone mind controlls me to attack my mates I'd sure as H*** rage before just to smack their butts harder, because that's how a barbarian reacts when he's supposed to kill stuff.
Anyways, I know what the rules say, it's pretty clear. So, houserule what you want but you're putting a whole lot of energy to diminish one of the subclasses with one of the worst penalties in the game.
Few campaigns I am aware of deal much exhaustion. This means, for the most part, you can fairly safely use Frenzy once per day. Sure, you suffer disadvantage on ability checks for the rest of the day, but that is not terrible... especially as you are most likely to use it on a "Boss"/BBEG who is likely to be the last encounter of the day. As long as you stick to one use, you recover from that single level of exhaustion overnight.
If you then hit a second (or third, or more) BBEG in the day, you start building up more levels of exhaustion. That starts to get bad. However, given that many similar "Nova" abilities are limited to once per day, you would be even worse off with one of those: You've burned your single use early, sucks to be you right now! The Berserker at least has the option to use it again if he really needs it, albeit with more severe consequences which will require multiple days to recover from. Given that you are most likely to use this in a win-or-die situation, I'd rather have the option to give myself another level exhaustion to save the day, potentially saving the group from a TPK...
Of course, if you are in a campaign which regularly induces exhaustion from other sources, Frenzy is verging on useless. You may wish to break it out and suffer the consequences on the BBEG which is just about to wipe your party out, but you are unlikely to use it except in the most dire need. I would not want to be a berserker in that kind of campaign at all. I'd expect a DM who planned to use exhaustion regularly to warn a player before they chose the berserker, though.
Few campaigns I am aware of deal much exhaustion. This means, for the most part, you can fairly safely use Frenzy once per day. Sure, you suffer disadvantage on ability checks for the rest of the day, but that is not terrible... especially as you are most likely to use it on a "Boss"/BBEG who is likely to be the last encounter of the day. As long as you stick to one use, you recover from that single level of exhaustion overnight.
If you then hit a second (or third, or more) BBEG in the day, you start building up more levels of exhaustion. That starts to get bad. However, given that many similar "Nova" abilities are limited to once per day, you would be even worse off with one of those: You've burned your single use early, sucks to be you right now! The Berserker at least has the option to use it again if he really needs it, albeit with more severe consequences which will require multiple days to recover from. Given that you are most likely to use this in a win-or-die situation, I'd rather have the option to give myself another level exhaustion to save the day, potentially saving the group from a TPK...
Of course, if you are in a campaign which regularly induces exhaustion from other sources, Frenzy is verging on useless. You may wish to break it out and suffer the consequences on the BBEG which is just about to wipe your party out, but you are unlikely to use it except in the most dire need. I would not want to be a berserker in that kind of campaign at all. I'd expect a DM who planned to use exhaustion regularly to warn a player before they chose the berserker, though.
Few campaigns I am aware of deal much exhaustion. This means, for the most part, you can fairly safely use Frenzy once per day. Sure, you suffer disadvantage on ability checks for the rest of the day, but that is not terrible... especially as you are most likely to use it on a "Boss"/BBEG who is likely to be the last encounter of the day. As long as you stick to one use, you recover from that single level of exhaustion overnight.
If you then hit a second (or third, or more) BBEG in the day, you start building up more levels of exhaustion. That starts to get bad. However, given that many similar "Nova" abilities are limited to once per day, you would be even worse off with one of those: You've burned your single use early, sucks to be you right now! The Berserker at least has the option to use it again if he really needs it, albeit with more severe consequences which will require multiple days to recover from. Given that you are most likely to use this in a win-or-die situation, I'd rather have the option to give myself another level exhaustion to save the day, potentially saving the group from a TPK...
Of course, if you are in a campaign which regularly induces exhaustion from other sources, Frenzy is verging on useless. You may wish to break it out and suffer the consequences on the BBEG which is just about to wipe your party out, but you are unlikely to use it except in the most dire need. I would not want to be a berserker in that kind of campaign at all. I'd expect a DM who planned to use exhaustion regularly to warn a player before they chose the berserker, though.
That's the rub for me. You can only (practically) use it once per day, and all the rest of day you're just a vanilla Barbarian with no subclass abilities. And there are too many other ways to get a bonus action attack that don't cause any penalties at all.
Few campaigns I am aware of deal much exhaustion. This means, for the most part, you can fairly safely use Frenzy once per day. Sure, you suffer disadvantage on ability checks for the rest of the day, but that is not terrible... especially as you are most likely to use it on a "Boss"/BBEG who is likely to be the last encounter of the day. As long as you stick to one use, you recover from that single level of exhaustion overnight.
If you then hit a second (or third, or more) BBEG in the day, you start building up more levels of exhaustion. That starts to get bad. However, given that many similar "Nova" abilities are limited to once per day, you would be even worse off with one of those: You've burned your single use early, sucks to be you right now! The Berserker at least has the option to use it again if he really needs it, albeit with more severe consequences which will require multiple days to recover from. Given that you are most likely to use this in a win-or-die situation, I'd rather have the option to give myself another level exhaustion to save the day, potentially saving the group from a TPK...
Of course, if you are in a campaign which regularly induces exhaustion from other sources, Frenzy is verging on useless. You may wish to break it out and suffer the consequences on the BBEG which is just about to wipe your party out, but you are unlikely to use it except in the most dire need. I would not want to be a berserker in that kind of campaign at all. I'd expect a DM who planned to use exhaustion regularly to warn a player before they chose the berserker, though.
Few campaigns I am aware of deal much exhaustion. This means, for the most part, you can fairly safely use Frenzy once per day. Sure, you suffer disadvantage on ability checks for the rest of the day, but that is not terrible... especially as you are most likely to use it on a "Boss"/BBEG who is likely to be the last encounter of the day. As long as you stick to one use, you recover from that single level of exhaustion overnight.
If you then hit a second (or third, or more) BBEG in the day, you start building up more levels of exhaustion. That starts to get bad. However, given that many similar "Nova" abilities are limited to once per day, you would be even worse off with one of those: You've burned your single use early, sucks to be you right now! The Berserker at least has the option to use it again if he really needs it, albeit with more severe consequences which will require multiple days to recover from. Given that you are most likely to use this in a win-or-die situation, I'd rather have the option to give myself another level exhaustion to save the day, potentially saving the group from a TPK...
Of course, if you are in a campaign which regularly induces exhaustion from other sources, Frenzy is verging on useless. You may wish to break it out and suffer the consequences on the BBEG which is just about to wipe your party out, but you are unlikely to use it except in the most dire need. I would not want to be a berserker in that kind of campaign at all. I'd expect a DM who planned to use exhaustion regularly to warn a player before they chose the berserker, though.
That's the rub for me. You can only (practically) use it once per day, and all the rest of day you're just a vanilla Barbarian with no subclass abilities. And there are too many other ways to get a bonus action attack that don't cause any penalties at all.
With a great weapon each turn without any other conditions? I mean, fighting with two weapons gives you an extra attack with a smaller weapon, and GWM gives extra attacks on crit or if you kill something, but unless you're fighting weak enemies it's only happening once in a while. Actually getting an extra attack with damage from your strength modifier is a bit limited as far as I can tell, at least in any way that couldn't also benefit the berserker, like someone casting haste on you. The war cleric can get these extra attacks wisdom modifier times/rest, which caps at 5. One use of rage with frenzy can do this for 10 turns.
I'm not saying you're wrong here, just wondering which ways there are that aren't limited to specific amount of uses, only on crits or similar limiting factors?
Because every other nova ability in the game simply requires the expenditure of a limited number of daily uses. Frenzy actually gives a debuff that penalizes you. Most people do not find the bonus power to be worth the cost, especially given that every other barbarian subpath gives you a 3rd level ability that goes off every time you rage.
That's several disingenuous assertions.
First, we cannot reasonably assume that the people most-vociferously complaining about the Path of the Berserker are representive of the majority of the player base. They get attention, as negative criticism always does, for being loud. But that's not the same as being in the majority.
Second, not every Primal Path in the PHB, where the Berserker hails from, grants an ability which "goes off" every time the barbarian rages. And even the ones that do aren't flashy. The bear and wolf totems are passive and only matter situationally. They're only effective when the conditions are right. And the eagle totem is reliant on the bonus action, making it active instead of passive, and (like Frenzied Rage) takes an extra round to activate. That said, it grants greater utility than either of the previous totems. This makes it powerful, in comparison.
Subsequent books always add varying degrees of power creep. Even the "weaker" subclasses from SCAG were basically on-par with those in the PHB, which was fine. But later books, especially, make the PHB options look less appealing. But this doesn't mean any of the PHB options are bad. All of them add solid options to an already effective chassis. Subclasses are gravy.
Every nova in the game has an opportunity cost. Action Surge, when used for Attack, means you're not using it for every other action you could perform. (The same could also be said for Cunning Action, though it's not really a nova.) Every use of Divine Smite means you have one less spell slot to cast spells with, and those spells might be worth more in the long run. The paladin has to choose between short-term and long-term viability; or even just the flexibility in the current skirmish.
And Frenzied Rage means suffering Exhaustion as the cost for a "slow-burn nova" that lasts multiple turns. It can match, or exceed, the zealot's Divine Fury in 3-4 rounds in every tier of play. Over a long(er) fight, those extra attacks are worth more than almost anyone else's damage output. And how steep those penalties go relies on the player, so they have complete throttle control. It's not meant to be used every fight, or even just once every day. It's for big, epic fights.
Fine, the majority of players who actually care enough about the subclass to participate in these circular arguments.
Second, literally no other barbarian subclass, regardless of sourcebook, puts any limiter on the number of times the character can use the power they're granted at 3rd level beyond the number of times per day they can rage.
Third, if a Berserker only uses frenzy once per day, while a Zealot uses Divine Fury every time they rage, the Berserker is not actually outdamaging the Zealot unless they're only having one encounter per day.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
But they are probably going to outdamage them when it really counts.
That's kinda of the point of Nova damage: it may not do as much damage on average in the long term, but when you really need it, it packs a wallop! It can be better to be putting out massive amounts of damage when you're facing the incredibly tough BBEG, or the massive number of attackers which threaten to overwhelm the whole party, rather than a bit more all the time, including when you don't need it.
The thing about regularly putting up bigger numbers, as with Divine Fury, is it's all theoretical. It looks great on paper, but in practice, the damage might be wasted. The target could be dropped before Divine Fury could even apply. A rogue's Sneak Attack might only need half their dice pool. Anyone could get a critical hit and drop an enemy when just the minimum damage from a base hit with their weapon will do.
Another weapon attack isn't just putting up big damage. It's efficient damage. It's less likely to be wasted. It can be reallocated and potentially drop a third target. And it can score a critical hit; which is another notch in its belt because of Brutal Critical.
However if an extra attack is all that is needed look to path of the beast it can if using claw give you three attacks which if they use the 10th ability and the enemy fails they can either potential hit a forth enemy and burn the enemy's reaction or deal extra psychic damage. Plus they can instead gain hp or increase your AC for an attack
However if an extra attack is all that is needed look to path of the beast it can if using claw give you three attacks which if they use the 10th ability and the enemy fails they can either potential hit a forth enemy and burn the enemy's reaction or deal extra psychic damage. Plus they can instead gain hp or increase your AC for an attack
True, but they cannot do so with a d12 or 2d6 weapon.
Also, another point to note is that the only restriction on the bonus action attack for the berserker is that they frenzy. Most other BA attacks require that you have attacked with your action. There frenzied berserker could well dash then BA attack, drink a healing potion then BA attack, or even BA attack then hide. Few characters have the option to do absolutely anything with their action and still get a bonus action attack.
The berserker also doesn't have that option though, realistically. They can play around with things like that for 1 fight a day, but if they aren't using their bonus action to supplement their main attacks, then what is the point? They are still a barbarian; they still want to be up close dealing damage. Using their action to not attack is severely sub-optimal.
But they are probably going to outdamage them when it really counts.
That's kinda of the point of Nova damage: it may not do as much damage on average in the long term, but when you really need it, it packs a wallop! It can be better to be putting out massive amounts of damage when you're facing the incredibly tough BBEG
You're right, that's the theory behind nova vs consistent damage.
The problem is that in actual gameplay, it's not "massive" amounts of damage. It's a couple extra points... less than that if the Zealot has any form of BA damage of their own and by late game, divine fury starts to just outright match Frenzy on its own.
That's the problem with the Berserker. It's not that there's anything wrong with the idea of being able to go nova (in fact, it's a concept I really enjoy). It's that in practice it's less a massive damage spike and more being a tiny bit better once per day in exchange for being noticeably worse in all your other fights. Sometimes you don't even have that and you're just behind all day long, even when you do Frenzy.
But they are probably going to outdamage them when it really counts.
That's kinda of the point of Nova damage: it may not do as much damage on average in the long term, but when you really need it, it packs a wallop! It can be better to be putting out massive amounts of damage when you're facing the incredibly tough BBEG
You're right, that's the theory behind nova vs consistent damage.
The problem is that in actual gameplay, it's not "massive" amounts of damage. It's a couple extra points... less than that if the Zealot has any form of BA damage of their own and by late game, divine fury starts to just outright match Frenzy on its own.
That's the problem with the Berserker. It's not that there's anything wrong with the idea of being able to go nova (in fact, it's a concept I really enjoy). It's that in practice it's less a massive damage spike and more being a tiny bit better once per day in exchange for being noticeably worse in all your other fights. Sometimes you don't even have that and you're just behind all day long, even when you do Frenzy.
Catching up in late game is just basically the berserker class going "Oh Hey. Your Finally here."
And it's not just a little bit of damage getting that third attack. Specially with GWM and the appropriate weapon. We're talking about a potential +15 static damage minimum to each turn and it can end up as high as +21 by level 20 though +17 to +19 is more realistic for much of the Berserker's mid to high level career. The Zealot need to get up to about 16th level if not higher to match this same static damage over both of it's attacks. And the die is still going to be better than Divine Fury at all Levels. It's only true comparison is by just plain getting so many more turns using it than the Berserker is getting.
And sure... the Zealot can do things to get a third attack. Granted many of them are weakened and/or require significant investment to get and may or may not require you not to be able to use a two handed weapon in the case of at least one of them losing you not only weapon damage but the GWM damage as well. Which is just a place where the Berserker can be focusing on other things or how to get more sustained damage over all that will hopefully just make his "Nova" ability all the more potent.
All of this for an ability that you need to manage a bit and choose when to take that Exhaustion and in Dire need can be pushed above and beyond and use it more than once a day. And that's not even getting into the fact that should the Berserker for some reason find the need to do something else in combat with his main action he doesn't have to sacrifice ALL of his attacks for a round while having made the choice to use it which is a situational advantage no other barbarian can boast to have at any time, and in fact most characters of any class can ever boast to have either.
So is it's cost high? Yes. But your return on investment is also high. So it balances out.
And yet the Berserker requiring its DM to account for its constant use of Exhaustion essentially eliminates any other usage of Exhaustion the DM may want to employ, since imposing Exhaustion ANY OTHER WAY than the barbarian choosing to Frenzy is taking away the barbarian's ability to Frenzy.
Say I'm planning an adventure in the mountains for my players, as a DM. I want to emphasize the merciless, unforgiving nature of the environment, and the hostile and inhospitable creatures who live in that environment. I've set up mechanics for frequent blizzards that sap the strength from those caught in them unprepared, as well as deciding on methods I'm going to use to track how much exertion a character outputs. Make too many Strength or Constitution checks in this punishing environment and you have to start saving against Exhaustion, as the mountains take their toll. I've created custom monsters like Zee's Marrow Sucker; creatures that deal little physical damage but instead drain the energy-rich marrow from their victims, quickly inflicting debilitating levels of Exhaustion. I've created crag trolls whose icy auras and frozen claws numb the body and sap its reserves. I've built this wonderful grueling adventure where the ever-present threat of losing strength and succumbing to the cold must be weighed against the necessity for speed, as the players race to stop...
Oh. Jim is playing a Berserker barbarian. His core subclass feature, the thing he's relying on to define his character's entire identity, requires him to constantly sustain unavoidable Exhaustion as nothing more than fuel for a handful of bonus attacks in his fights.
Nothing requires a DM to do anything, but if the goal is to have fun then a DM should always consider the player characters and how they fit into the campaign, or make absolutely clear the campaign's theme and additional challenges, and work with players to help them choose characters that will fit well with what you want to do, or make tweaks if they absolutely must play that one character they've been sitting on for ages and can't wait to use.
If you want to run a campaign that's specifically going to be a struggle for the Berseker that one player is thinking of trying, then you can encourage them to hold onto that character for a different campaign, or work with them to make it work anyway (give them one free Frenzied Rage per long rest that doesn't incur exhaustion, set a baseline exhaustion for the group and let them clear up to two levels to get back, swap Frenzied Rage for "ignores exhaustion while raging", there's three options already).
In your frozen wasteland example, I would point out as I have done before that a Wizard would also struggle, as a remote frozen wasteland isn't well known for its access to spells to copy into your spellbook. Likewise a Circle of the Land Druid may have a harder time using Natural Recovery if you consider that RAW it's supposed to involve communing with nature (of which there may not much to commune with in a frozen waste). If it's reasonable to make allowances for either of these then it should be reasonable to make an allowance for the Berserker as well?
More generally, there are other more common cases; a party that doesn't include a Rogue for example could scupper your plans to have cool stealth opportunities, a party without a Bard or other character with good social skills could sink a plan for a campaign with lots of social encounters, and so-on. There is always some way something in the party will screw with a DM's plans, Bersekers aren't unique in that regard.
The reason that campaign/DM'ing arguments don't really work against the Berserker is that a campaign, a DM and a party do not exist in isolation; all of it is a collaborative experience. Now you might argue that one particular mechanic is annoying as a DM, and that's fair enough, but to argue that you can't run a campaign because of it is strange, as you've a no shortage of ways to overcome it and still use exhaustion as a campaign mechanic if you really want to.
It sounds like a really fun idea actually; my group's going to be breaking from our current main campaign to start a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign soon, and I'm really hoping we have some fun survival mechanics to contend with. I've put Survival proficiency on so many of the my characters, but I never seem to actually get to use it!
The canny, intelligent Berserker you describe who knows exactly when to deploy his abilities would be immensely frustrated by the game I've built because Exhaustion from other sources is interfering with his ability to display that clever battle wit. The derp-ass cheesewheel who Frenzies every single time he fights is frustrated by the game because his dumbass character died in the third session from accruing six stages of Exhaustion. In either case the player is pissed and it's My Fault(TM) as the DM
The canny Berserker who plays their class properly can still do so; knowing they're already suffering from exhaustion doesn't mean they can't still choose to take one extra point compared to everyone else at a crucial moment, it just means that afterwards they'll be suffering more from exhaustion than everyone else and need to find some way to deal with that. If anything it makes that decision more crucial and meaningful than ever, I'd actually love to play that, though not everyone might have it in mind as a Berserker.
The "derp-ass cheesewheel" sounds like someone who was determined to die no matter which campaign they played in, just like that one player who jumps into every pit they see without finding out how deep/spike filled it is first. Actually playing an intentionally short-lived Berserker also sounds like a lot of fun; it lets a group RP around the loss, could be worked out with the DM as intentional (to highlight the danger being faced), and I always have more character ideas than I've campaigns (or time) to play them in. I'd love to play that as well. 😀
I don't quite agree here.
Many campaigns regularly have ssome or all of these aspects for more or less long protracted periods (maybe not all campaign long, but often enough):
The incredibly frequent Lesser Version of the "Constant Time Pressure" (CTP) phenomenon: Needing to face off up to 6-8 Medium-Hard encounters a day because otherwise the evil cultists will sacrifice the princess at midnight. Then the next adventure it's another in-game excuse to have to complete the entire little adventure in a single adventuring day. Same for the next one. And the next one. Sometimes the adventure is a bit bigger and the party can squeeze a single Long Rest somewhere in the middle. But most of all they basically have the fact that, for most of their adventures, the PCs can't just opt to simply go NUCLEAR then rest, lathering rinsing repeating this almost every fight, allowing them to vanquish enemies that are clearly stronger than their levbel, with relative ease. The PCs have to use their resources more intelligently otherwise they will run out.
And the still somewhat frequent (but not ridiculously so) Greater Version of the "Constant Time Pressure" (CTP) phenomenon: Instead of beng "within" advennturing days, it is "camoaaign arc" based, where the PCs have to spend weeks or months or more running from town to town and ruin to ruin trying to find the 7 parts of the Staff of Power Artifact, the only thing able to banish the evil overlord demon from the world. So yeah no downtime at all. No time to do sidequests (except super short ones) or say try to learn the flute, when the fate of the world is at hand.
*All* official modules suffer from Lesser CTP to some degree, usually high. And many official modules also suffer from Greater CTP to some extent.
Now the DM adds environmental challenges and/or special monster, that cause Exhaustion. He calculates that in the tougher areas, the PCs should each accumulate a tiny bit over 1 Exhaustion Rank per day. Thus, they heal back up most of it, but daqy after day it slowly stacks up, until they eventually complete the aventure in a more or less drained state and go back to town to fully rest. In even thougher areas, they accumulate each on average more than one per day.
Then you get a Zerker that "wisely" use his Frenzy only once per adventuring day. Less offten use than that and it would basically be the same as meaning he's getting to use his main ability so rarely that it might as well not count anymore. But now because of the environment and special critters, if he does that he'll just die in 6 days.
My own fix would be simple: I'd just make Frenzy a 1/Long Rest ability, causing a temporaryform of Exhaustion that lasts until the next Long Rest (or maybe even Short Rest) is finished. Or any other number of fixes that makes the Zerker Exhaustion removal rate not "compete" with normal Exhaustion removal rate. Thus, it's uses would not "long term stack up" with normal other sources of Exhaustion. Problem (mostly) solved.
Then the assumption that a "mere" 1 Exhaustion rank is no biggie for combat oriented PCs. Err, nope? Your barbarian has as many skills as say a wizard, and all of them are just as important as the wizard's! My Barb has Survival and party is crossing this huge desert, so having not one but two PCs, the barb and the ranger, both proficient in Survival, is vital to find enough food for the group. Sucks to suddenly have disadvantage. The party needs to interrogate prisoners, who will good-cop-bad-cop cajole & intimidate them into full cooperation if not the bard + barb combo? My Barb is good at Stealth and it's important for the skilled but frail thief to have strong backup when scouting? Suddenly you suck. And so on. Suddenly your PC sucks at every single task he's suppposed to bbe good at, seriously gimping the party of as many (or nearly as many) valuable skills as most other characters. EVEN ONLY 1 RANK OF EXHAUSTION IS SERIOUSLY BAD! Sure, for DMs that do only combat-combat-combat then yeah skills aren't very important. But you'd expect a much more balanced "fully using the three pillars of adventure" campaign to put skills in the foreground often enough that 1 PC suddenly having disad on all of his skills WILL cause problems.
IMHO the *only* time a Zerker is better to play is when the DM is running an official module but doesn't really enforce the constant time pressure, so that they get to fight only a couple times each day, tops, being allowed to rest much more often than what the module says, and also with the somewhat magical little kid thinking that any "tough battle" always also means "we now can fully rest up right afterwards". Complete with the ssuper obvious exit that leads right back out of the dungeon. Cause this is how official modules are mostly built and that is how the stupid trope goes. So the spellcasters get to nuke and the zerkers get to frenzy once per game easily with overall negligible temporary penalties.
The argument that the Zerker nees to ration his Frenzy to use it only "where it counts" for the final big boss battle, whghere it makes a real difference, goes to the wizard too: keep your big spells for the big flashy end boss dragon! Or any other number of classes too. But *they* don't get Exhaustion for having to be wise to keep their best abilities for the really tough fights. It also assumes the DM is a big moron that super-telegraphs WHICH fight is the final boss fight "of the day", so that the Zerker (and the rest of the pparty) don't waste their best abilities on a mere "middle of dungeon day" tough fight. Or uses a published module which they all do exactly that kind of obviousness.
REMEMBER that D&D 5e is OFFICIALLY targeted to be played by (ideally) players aged 12 years or older.
12. frakking. years.
Anybody running an official module is basically playing an adventure fully designed for that kind of mental age level. Even if the original writer didn't intend for it to be so, the WotC editors definitely make sure of it. That is why I'd never DM one of those even with a 100 foot long pole, unlless DMing for kids of course. Still it already irks me a lot as a player how weak most of those modules are written. and how they lack so much depth and intricacies.
And when you DM for kids, the one playing a barbarian will go Zerker and just DIE rather quickly : such player type simply has not enough discipline or experience to know when is the goood time to use that "super to be rationed a lot" ability. Unless you jiggle the subclass a bit. Enforcing a max use of 1/day only, and only on boss fights, usually helps preventing the kid from suicidally gimping himself so much he ends up gloating like a madman for a few minor fights where he explode enemies easy peachy, then super frustrated and not having fun at all for the entire rest of the game session ESPECIALLY the final big fight of the day.
I love how this is still contested by people - it means there is a spot for this class in some peoples’ hearts. We’ve gone over all of the arguments/pros/cons, I’ll just share some fitting anecdotes.
I’m playing with a Berserker in a campaign I run, and he’s using Frenzy for BBEG battles where he has a shield and a Battleaxe, so he can dodge amidst a swarm of enemies and still get a bonus attack every turn. Total damage output was decent and he outright absorbed most of the damage from the baddies.
Also, in my other campaign I play in, the Bear Totem Barbarian fought an Adult Red Dragon and just sat there doing nothing for 10 rounds while the rest of us had to do it all ourselves. Total damage output was literally 0. We eventually just took him off the turn tracker.
I mean, we could all go around bringing up more theory but how about try playing one instead, past 3rd level and reporting back your own results instead of rehashing this over and over again in our whiteroom.
Now the DM adds environmental challenges and/or special monster, that cause Exhaustion. He calculates that in the tougher areas, the PCs should each accumulate a tiny bit over 1 Exhaustion Rank per day. Thus, they heal back up most of it, but daqy after day it slowly stacks up, until they eventually complete the aventure in a more or less drained state and go back to town to fully rest. In even thougher areas, they accumulate each on average more than one per day.
Uh… what? You’re now formulating a way to give everyone exhaustion so they always have disadvantage on skill checks? But you go out of your way to say disadvantage on skill checks is absolutely devastating to a class and nobody can do anything if the Barbarian has disadvantage, but somehow this is going to be just fine if everyone has disadvantage? This is just lazy in my opinion.
And completely irrelevant to any normal comparison of campaigns.
Again, I say go play one in a campaign before making long-winded theoretical arguments. I’ve played one - enjoyed the heck out of it.
I think it is easy to underestimate the effect of an additional attack with whatever your go-to, probably two-handed, weapon is, and easy to overestimate how bad a level (or even two) of exhaustion is.
The player that had a berserker in one of my campaigns used frenzy in encounters that seemed like they'd be a tough fight, and would tear through things in short order (took down a vrock by himself in 3 rounds at level 5, using a dagger +1 instead of his usual greataxe, for example).
When it came to the effects of exhaustion, disadvantage on ability checks isn't that much of a problem when you can cancel it out on the checks you are most likely to be making by raging again (or using a crowbar, since most of the ability checks the barbarian was making in my campaign actually ended up being to open doors and chests), and at a little higher level you get advantage on initiative checks as part of a class feature that happens to also help you out with having missed important perception checks and getting surprised as a result. Once he was high enough level to have higher movement speed, he didn't mind racking up 2 levels of exhaustion in a day because half his speed was still pretty much as fast as the dwarf in the party.
As for multi-classing for a "better" use of your bonus action, don't forget that however many levels you put in another class is delaying having more rages per/day, higher rage damage, and other cool barbarian features like brutal critical by that many levels.
Love the anecdote. And thanks for realizing the opportunity cost. When other Barbarians take GWM or wield a second weapon for those bonus actions, capitalize on that cost by wielding a shield and taking defensive duelist, resilient dex or wis, shield master, sentinel…
I am a fan of Sentinel myself - combined with Retaliation at late levels, you’re almost guaranteed to solidify your Reaction action economy. Once you have this combination your Berserker is now attacking 4 times a round, or 2 times a round while dodging.
I love how this is still contested by people - it means there is a spot for this class in some peoples’ hearts. We’ve gone over all of the arguments/pros/cons, I’ll just share some fitting anecdotes.
I’m playing with a Berserker in a campaign I run, and he’s using Frenzy for BBEG battles where he has a shield and a Battleaxe, so he can dodge amidst a swarm of enemies and still get a bonus attack every turn. Total damage output was decent and he outright absorbed most of the damage from the baddies.
Also, in my other campaign I play in, the Bear Totem Barbarian fought an Adult Red Dragon and just sat there doing nothing for 10 rounds while the rest of us had to do it all ourselves. Total damage output was literally 0. We eventually just took him off the turn tracker.
I mean, we could all go around bringing up more theory but how about try playing one instead, past 3rd level and reporting back your own results instead of rehashing this over and over again in our whiteroom.
It's not like Berserkers can fly. This is a common issue for Barbarians, and one of the reasons I think it's just poor design Rage and Reckless Attack are melee only instead of melee weapon only, so they can at least credibly throw javelins (they should carry javelins anyway, and your example Barbarian has only themselves to blame for not having any - even an unbuffed javelin throw is more DPR than 0). Mind you, an Adult Red Dragon refusing to use its melee weapons has a tiny fraction of its DPR available - a Barbarian convincing one to just stay away instead of coming in close is completely fulfilling their job of tanking. If it stayed away just to avoid tangling with the Barbarian and fought a losing battle of ranged firepower with the party, that's a strong win for the Barbarian, just a boring one.
I would never play a Berserker, because frenzying every time you rage is a terrible idea, and I want my subclass to be relevant every time I rage. My go-to subclasses for Barbarian are Totem and Guardian, although I've never tried a Beast Barbarian and would be keen on seeing if I can do anything clever with it, in particular using a Grung.
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Because every other nova ability in the game simply requires the expenditure of a limited number of daily uses. Frenzy actually gives a debuff that penalizes you. Most people do not find the bonus power to be worth the cost, especially given that every other barbarian subpath gives you a 3rd level ability that goes off every time you rage.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Because using a limited rescource is one thing, and using a limited rescource that also negatively impacts your further actions, potentially even days after you have used your ability, is another.
It's also an ability that is useless when you play a dual wielder, which is just so very strange to me - I would have thought that the archetypical Berserker would wanna swing an instrument of murder in BOTH of his or her hands?
I don't think its a WEAK ability - we all can agree that having additional attacks is one of the best things a weapon-wielding class can get from an ability.
#OpenDnD
That's several disingenuous assertions.
First, we cannot reasonably assume that the people most-vociferously complaining about the Path of the Berserker are representive of the majority of the player base. They get attention, as negative criticism always does, for being loud. But that's not the same as being in the majority.
Second, not every Primal Path in the PHB, where the Berserker hails from, grants an ability which "goes off" every time the barbarian rages. And even the ones that do aren't flashy. The bear and wolf totems are passive and only matter situationally. They're only effective when the conditions are right. And the eagle totem is reliant on the bonus action, making it active instead of passive, and (like Frenzied Rage) takes an extra round to activate. That said, it grants greater utility than either of the previous totems. This makes it powerful, in comparison.
Subsequent books always add varying degrees of power creep. Even the "weaker" subclasses from SCAG were basically on-par with those in the PHB, which was fine. But later books, especially, make the PHB options look less appealing. But this doesn't mean any of the PHB options are bad. All of them add solid options to an already effective chassis. Subclasses are gravy.
Every nova in the game has an opportunity cost. Action Surge, when used for Attack, means you're not using it for every other action you could perform. (The same could also be said for Cunning Action, though it's not really a nova.) Every use of Divine Smite means you have one less spell slot to cast spells with, and those spells might be worth more in the long run. The paladin has to choose between short-term and long-term viability; or even just the flexibility in the current skirmish.
And Frenzied Rage means suffering Exhaustion as the cost for a "slow-burn nova" that lasts multiple turns. It can match, or exceed, the zealot's Divine Fury in 3-4 rounds in every tier of play. Over a long(er) fight, those extra attacks are worth more than almost anyone else's damage output. And how steep those penalties go relies on the player, so they have complete throttle control. It's not meant to be used every fight, or even just once every day. It's for big, epic fights.
It's still a 10' radius at level 7 meaning it can easily affect the whole party and a bunch of henchmen if you wanted. With no penalty and no "get out of jail free card" for a spellcaster not prepared to word it right. Saying the mindless rage is even close to that power is not very accurate so not sure I see your point there... There's even a level 1 spell that deals with a lot of the creatures that can deal these kinds of conditions just as easily.
Simply put, saying mindless rage doesn't do what it says it does is just weird when there's so many other ways to deal with it that I just can't understand why people use so much energy to make this ability that is in no way an unstoppable power or even superiour to many other abilites and in fact even easily replicated, worse than it is. It's just... Why? What's the point? And if the 3rd ability is so lackluster, why go through so much effort to make their next ability just as useless? I don't understand the amount of energy you guys need to put down just to interpret the abilities of a subclass you already say is bad, in the worst way possible instead of the other way around?
Berserker gets charmed, spellcaster (run by the DM because this isn't PVP, remember?) says "kill your friends". The berserker goes into a frenzy to slaughter his friends, but the moment of rage grants them a clear sight of whats going on, the true enemies, and they attack them... This is HORRIBLE OF THE PLAYER OMGZ
Vs.
DM: "I know exactly how to word the use of this spell or ability so you, the player, won't be able to use your class ability that only works in a few situations and at the same time will give you a point of exhaustion, slowly penalizing you and killing you. My spellcaster somehow knows you've got this power so he carefully words his suggestion so that you are powerless and will kill your friends". GREAT DM MUCH WOW!!
I mean, I CLEARLY said there are ways to get around it and even showed what spells could be used where it's not even an issue. Like Hypnotic pattern. The DM doesn't even HAVE to use the spells that the berserker can break out of. Yet the berserker is the bad player?
Me, personally, as a DM would have gone "Wow, that's awesome, you sure ruined my plans there, cool" if a player did it. But Idk I guess I'm a bad DM for letting the players use their cool abilites the way they are written even if it ruins my encounter. I should better myself.
Also, before anyone complains about those examples, again I've already stated there are ways to get around it and if the situation instead was the same but the caster had said "Run" or "Run and get help" or something similar, then of course they wouldn't have any good reason to rage. This is a whole other situation. Also just for the record, if I was in this situation as a player and was not a berserker specifically, and someone mind controlls me to attack my mates I'd sure as H*** rage before just to smack their butts harder, because that's how a barbarian reacts when he's supposed to kill stuff.
Anyways, I know what the rules say, it's pretty clear. So, houserule what you want but you're putting a whole lot of energy to diminish one of the subclasses with one of the worst penalties in the game.
The thing is that it is situational.
Few campaigns I am aware of deal much exhaustion. This means, for the most part, you can fairly safely use Frenzy once per day. Sure, you suffer disadvantage on ability checks for the rest of the day, but that is not terrible... especially as you are most likely to use it on a "Boss"/BBEG who is likely to be the last encounter of the day. As long as you stick to one use, you recover from that single level of exhaustion overnight.
If you then hit a second (or third, or more) BBEG in the day, you start building up more levels of exhaustion. That starts to get bad. However, given that many similar "Nova" abilities are limited to once per day, you would be even worse off with one of those: You've burned your single use early, sucks to be you right now! The Berserker at least has the option to use it again if he really needs it, albeit with more severe consequences which will require multiple days to recover from. Given that you are most likely to use this in a win-or-die situation, I'd rather have the option to give myself another level exhaustion to save the day, potentially saving the group from a TPK...
Of course, if you are in a campaign which regularly induces exhaustion from other sources, Frenzy is verging on useless. You may wish to break it out and suffer the consequences on the BBEG which is just about to wipe your party out, but you are unlikely to use it except in the most dire need. I would not want to be a berserker in that kind of campaign at all. I'd expect a DM who planned to use exhaustion regularly to warn a player before they chose the berserker, though.
That's the rub for me. You can only (practically) use it once per day, and all the rest of day you're just a vanilla Barbarian with no subclass abilities. And there are too many other ways to get a bonus action attack that don't cause any penalties at all.
With a great weapon each turn without any other conditions? I mean, fighting with two weapons gives you an extra attack with a smaller weapon, and GWM gives extra attacks on crit or if you kill something, but unless you're fighting weak enemies it's only happening once in a while. Actually getting an extra attack with damage from your strength modifier is a bit limited as far as I can tell, at least in any way that couldn't also benefit the berserker, like someone casting haste on you. The war cleric can get these extra attacks wisdom modifier times/rest, which caps at 5. One use of rage with frenzy can do this for 10 turns.
I'm not saying you're wrong here, just wondering which ways there are that aren't limited to specific amount of uses, only on crits or similar limiting factors?
Fine, the majority of players who actually care enough about the subclass to participate in these circular arguments.
Second, literally no other barbarian subclass, regardless of sourcebook, puts any limiter on the number of times the character can use the power they're granted at 3rd level beyond the number of times per day they can rage.
Third, if a Berserker only uses frenzy once per day, while a Zealot uses Divine Fury every time they rage, the Berserker is not actually outdamaging the Zealot unless they're only having one encounter per day.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
But they are probably going to outdamage them when it really counts.
That's kinda of the point of Nova damage: it may not do as much damage on average in the long term, but when you really need it, it packs a wallop! It can be better to be putting out massive amounts of damage when you're facing the incredibly tough BBEG, or the massive number of attackers which threaten to overwhelm the whole party, rather than a bit more all the time, including when you don't need it.
The thing about regularly putting up bigger numbers, as with Divine Fury, is it's all theoretical. It looks great on paper, but in practice, the damage might be wasted. The target could be dropped before Divine Fury could even apply. A rogue's Sneak Attack might only need half their dice pool. Anyone could get a critical hit and drop an enemy when just the minimum damage from a base hit with their weapon will do.
Another weapon attack isn't just putting up big damage. It's efficient damage. It's less likely to be wasted. It can be reallocated and potentially drop a third target. And it can score a critical hit; which is another notch in its belt because of Brutal Critical.
However if an extra attack is all that is needed look to path of the beast it can if using claw give you three attacks which if they use the 10th ability and the enemy fails they can either potential hit a forth enemy and burn the enemy's reaction or deal extra psychic damage. Plus they can instead gain hp or increase your AC for an attack
True, but they cannot do so with a d12 or 2d6 weapon.
Also, another point to note is that the only restriction on the bonus action attack for the berserker is that they frenzy. Most other BA attacks require that you have attacked with your action. There frenzied berserker could well dash then BA attack, drink a healing potion then BA attack, or even BA attack then hide. Few characters have the option to do absolutely anything with their action and still get a bonus action attack.
The berserker also doesn't have that option though, realistically. They can play around with things like that for 1 fight a day, but if they aren't using their bonus action to supplement their main attacks, then what is the point? They are still a barbarian; they still want to be up close dealing damage. Using their action to not attack is severely sub-optimal.
You're right, that's the theory behind nova vs consistent damage.
The problem is that in actual gameplay, it's not "massive" amounts of damage. It's a couple extra points... less than that if the Zealot has any form of BA damage of their own and by late game, divine fury starts to just outright match Frenzy on its own.
That's the problem with the Berserker. It's not that there's anything wrong with the idea of being able to go nova (in fact, it's a concept I really enjoy). It's that in practice it's less a massive damage spike and more being a tiny bit better once per day in exchange for being noticeably worse in all your other fights. Sometimes you don't even have that and you're just behind all day long, even when you do Frenzy.
Catching up in late game is just basically the berserker class going "Oh Hey. Your Finally here."
And it's not just a little bit of damage getting that third attack. Specially with GWM and the appropriate weapon. We're talking about a potential +15 static damage minimum to each turn and it can end up as high as +21 by level 20 though +17 to +19 is more realistic for much of the Berserker's mid to high level career. The Zealot need to get up to about 16th level if not higher to match this same static damage over both of it's attacks. And the die is still going to be better than Divine Fury at all Levels. It's only true comparison is by just plain getting so many more turns using it than the Berserker is getting.
And sure... the Zealot can do things to get a third attack. Granted many of them are weakened and/or require significant investment to get and may or may not require you not to be able to use a two handed weapon in the case of at least one of them losing you not only weapon damage but the GWM damage as well. Which is just a place where the Berserker can be focusing on other things or how to get more sustained damage over all that will hopefully just make his "Nova" ability all the more potent.
All of this for an ability that you need to manage a bit and choose when to take that Exhaustion and in Dire need can be pushed above and beyond and use it more than once a day. And that's not even getting into the fact that should the Berserker for some reason find the need to do something else in combat with his main action he doesn't have to sacrifice ALL of his attacks for a round while having made the choice to use it which is a situational advantage no other barbarian can boast to have at any time, and in fact most characters of any class can ever boast to have either.
So is it's cost high? Yes. But your return on investment is also high. So it balances out.
I don't quite agree here.
Many campaigns regularly have ssome or all of these aspects for more or less long protracted periods (maybe not all campaign long, but often enough):
The incredibly frequent Lesser Version of the "Constant Time Pressure" (CTP) phenomenon: Needing to face off up to 6-8 Medium-Hard encounters a day because otherwise the evil cultists will sacrifice the princess at midnight. Then the next adventure it's another in-game excuse to have to complete the entire little adventure in a single adventuring day. Same for the next one. And the next one. Sometimes the adventure is a bit bigger and the party can squeeze a single Long Rest somewhere in the middle. But most of all they basically have the fact that, for most of their adventures, the PCs can't just opt to simply go NUCLEAR then rest, lathering rinsing repeating this almost every fight, allowing them to vanquish enemies that are clearly stronger than their levbel, with relative ease. The PCs have to use their resources more intelligently otherwise they will run out.
And the still somewhat frequent (but not ridiculously so) Greater Version of the "Constant Time Pressure" (CTP) phenomenon: Instead of beng "within" advennturing days, it is "camoaaign arc" based, where the PCs have to spend weeks or months or more running from town to town and ruin to ruin trying to find the 7 parts of the Staff of Power Artifact, the only thing able to banish the evil overlord demon from the world. So yeah no downtime at all. No time to do sidequests (except super short ones) or say try to learn the flute, when the fate of the world is at hand.
*All* official modules suffer from Lesser CTP to some degree, usually high. And many official modules also suffer from Greater CTP to some extent.
Now the DM adds environmental challenges and/or special monster, that cause Exhaustion. He calculates that in the tougher areas, the PCs should each accumulate a tiny bit over 1 Exhaustion Rank per day. Thus, they heal back up most of it, but daqy after day it slowly stacks up, until they eventually complete the aventure in a more or less drained state and go back to town to fully rest. In even thougher areas, they accumulate each on average more than one per day.
Then you get a Zerker that "wisely" use his Frenzy only once per adventuring day. Less offten use than that and it would basically be the same as meaning he's getting to use his main ability so rarely that it might as well not count anymore. But now because of the environment and special critters, if he does that he'll just die in 6 days.
My own fix would be simple: I'd just make Frenzy a 1/Long Rest ability, causing a temporary form of Exhaustion that lasts until the next Long Rest (or maybe even Short Rest) is finished. Or any other number of fixes that makes the Zerker Exhaustion removal rate not "compete" with normal Exhaustion removal rate. Thus, it's uses would not "long term stack up" with normal other sources of Exhaustion. Problem (mostly) solved.
Then the assumption that a "mere" 1 Exhaustion rank is no biggie for combat oriented PCs. Err, nope? Your barbarian has as many skills as say a wizard, and all of them are just as important as the wizard's! My Barb has Survival and party is crossing this huge desert, so having not one but two PCs, the barb and the ranger, both proficient in Survival, is vital to find enough food for the group. Sucks to suddenly have disadvantage. The party needs to interrogate prisoners, who will good-cop-bad-cop cajole & intimidate them into full cooperation if not the bard + barb combo? My Barb is good at Stealth and it's important for the skilled but frail thief to have strong backup when scouting? Suddenly you suck. And so on. Suddenly your PC sucks at every single task he's suppposed to bbe good at, seriously gimping the party of as many (or nearly as many) valuable skills as most other characters. EVEN ONLY 1 RANK OF EXHAUSTION IS SERIOUSLY BAD! Sure, for DMs that do only combat-combat-combat then yeah skills aren't very important. But you'd expect a much more balanced "fully using the three pillars of adventure" campaign to put skills in the foreground often enough that 1 PC suddenly having disad on all of his skills WILL cause problems.
IMHO the *only* time a Zerker is better to play is when the DM is running an official module but doesn't really enforce the constant time pressure, so that they get to fight only a couple times each day, tops, being allowed to rest much more often than what the module says, and also with the somewhat magical little kid thinking that any "tough battle" always also means "we now can fully rest up right afterwards". Complete with the ssuper obvious exit that leads right back out of the dungeon. Cause this is how official modules are mostly built and that is how the stupid trope goes. So the spellcasters get to nuke and the zerkers get to frenzy once per game easily with overall negligible temporary penalties.
The argument that the Zerker nees to ration his Frenzy to use it only "where it counts" for the final big boss battle, whghere it makes a real difference, goes to the wizard too: keep your big spells for the big flashy end boss dragon! Or any other number of classes too. But *they* don't get Exhaustion for having to be wise to keep their best abilities for the really tough fights. It also assumes the DM is a big moron that super-telegraphs WHICH fight is the final boss fight "of the day", so that the Zerker (and the rest of the pparty) don't waste their best abilities on a mere "middle of dungeon day" tough fight. Or uses a published module which they all do exactly that kind of obviousness.
REMEMBER that D&D 5e is OFFICIALLY targeted to be played by (ideally) players aged 12 years or older.
12. frakking. years.
Anybody running an official module is basically playing an adventure fully designed for that kind of mental age level. Even if the original writer didn't intend for it to be so, the WotC editors definitely make sure of it. That is why I'd never DM one of those even with a 100 foot long pole, unlless DMing for kids of course. Still it already irks me a lot as a player how weak most of those modules are written. and how they lack so much depth and intricacies.
And when you DM for kids, the one playing a barbarian will go Zerker and just DIE rather quickly : such player type simply has not enough discipline or experience to know when is the goood time to use that "super to be rationed a lot" ability. Unless you jiggle the subclass a bit. Enforcing a max use of 1/day only, and only on boss fights, usually helps preventing the kid from suicidally gimping himself so much he ends up gloating like a madman for a few minor fights where he explode enemies easy peachy, then super frustrated and not having fun at all for the entire rest of the game session ESPECIALLY the final big fight of the day.
I love how this is still contested by people - it means there is a spot for this class in some peoples’ hearts. We’ve gone over all of the arguments/pros/cons, I’ll just share some fitting anecdotes.
I’m playing with a Berserker in a campaign I run, and he’s using Frenzy for BBEG battles where he has a shield and a Battleaxe, so he can dodge amidst a swarm of enemies and still get a bonus attack every turn. Total damage output was decent and he outright absorbed most of the damage from the baddies.
Also, in my other campaign I play in, the Bear Totem Barbarian fought an Adult Red Dragon and just sat there doing nothing for 10 rounds while the rest of us had to do it all ourselves. Total damage output was literally 0. We eventually just took him off the turn tracker.
I mean, we could all go around bringing up more theory but how about try playing one instead, past 3rd level and reporting back your own results instead of rehashing this over and over again in our whiteroom.
Uh… what? You’re now formulating a way to give everyone exhaustion so they always have disadvantage on skill checks? But you go out of your way to say disadvantage on skill checks is absolutely devastating to a class and nobody can do anything if the Barbarian has disadvantage, but somehow this is going to be just fine if everyone has disadvantage? This is just lazy in my opinion.
And completely irrelevant to any normal comparison of campaigns.
Again, I say go play one in a campaign before making long-winded theoretical arguments. I’ve played one - enjoyed the heck out of it.
Love the anecdote. And thanks for realizing the opportunity cost. When other Barbarians take GWM or wield a second weapon for those bonus actions, capitalize on that cost by wielding a shield and taking defensive duelist, resilient dex or wis, shield master, sentinel…
I am a fan of Sentinel myself - combined with Retaliation at late levels, you’re almost guaranteed to solidify your Reaction action economy. Once you have this combination your Berserker is now attacking 4 times a round, or 2 times a round while dodging.
It's not like Berserkers can fly. This is a common issue for Barbarians, and one of the reasons I think it's just poor design Rage and Reckless Attack are melee only instead of melee weapon only, so they can at least credibly throw javelins (they should carry javelins anyway, and your example Barbarian has only themselves to blame for not having any - even an unbuffed javelin throw is more DPR than 0). Mind you, an Adult Red Dragon refusing to use its melee weapons has a tiny fraction of its DPR available - a Barbarian convincing one to just stay away instead of coming in close is completely fulfilling their job of tanking. If it stayed away just to avoid tangling with the Barbarian and fought a losing battle of ranged firepower with the party, that's a strong win for the Barbarian, just a boring one.
I would never play a Berserker, because frenzying every time you rage is a terrible idea, and I want my subclass to be relevant every time I rage. My go-to subclasses for Barbarian are Totem and Guardian, although I've never tried a Beast Barbarian and would be keen on seeing if I can do anything clever with it, in particular using a Grung.