What if the fix is the berserker effectively loses their resistance to damage if they frenzy? Like "...when your rage ends, you suffer any damage you resisted while in frenzy." The idea is that if HP resembles not merely flesh wounds and blood loss but stress etc., that when the berserker comes out of their fugue frenzy state it all becomes far more "real" than their normal rages. Their body has no way to cope with all the stress and damage along with the stress of the exertion of their frenzy?
What do you think?
I think that's a creative twist to the concept, but I feel like it would be frustrating in a different way, since the player then needs to track all of their "banked" damage. Not a terrible inconvenience, but it's not something I wouldn't want to track if I was playing a Barbarian.
I agree. It might be difficult to track. A way to do it would be to just ignore resistance while in the combat, but it takes away the fluff of dropping unconscious if you've "banked" lethal damage during the fight. Healing during the combat would also ruin the fluff, but in the end the result is the same.
Only compared to someone not making an BA attacks at all, which is part of the problem. It's not that difficult to find good uses for a bonus action in 5e.
Also you're comparing this to someone with no innate DPR boosters, while a number of Barb sublcasses do have some other way to enhance their damage that make Frenzy's edge a lot less than double.
That's the fundamental problem with Berserker. The stuff it gives you just isn't better enough compared to other subclasses given the downside Frenzy imparts. To the point that I think even if you only have one combat per day every day, Berserker vs Zealot isn't a clear win for the Berserker, especially at mid and higher levels (which I think is pretty telling).
I like the idea of a Barbarian that can go further beyond and push themselves to their limits. Berserker is clearly meant to call back to Frenzied Berserkers or just Rage from previous editions having downsides attached to it, but either Frenzy needs to be stronger or the Berserker needs a DPR enhancer that works in vanilla Rage too.
The simplest fix is to just make it only usable once per long rest, which is mostly what fatigue does anyway.
I like that it represents the character pushing themselves beyond their body's limits, so I do still like the option to use it at a cost. So I think it would be good to give the Berserker one free use per day, then inflict the exhaustion on future uses. That way the player can at least comfortably use it once, but still has the option to push themselves past their limit to take on more combats.
"Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. When your rage ends, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.
Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a short or long rest, the DC resets to 10."
I feel that this mechanic would give the berserker more-than-a-fair chance of frenzying without penalty once per short rest (up to an 80% chance of success at 3rd level; can always succeed by 9th level), but still discourages them from carelessly frenzying all the time.
Personally, I would say keep the punishment the same, but modify the attack. Much higher reward for the level of exhaustion, and creates a better example of tiring out after a "frenzy".
Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make two weapon attacks as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. If you use a ranged attack, the weapon must possess the Thrown property. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
The two bonus action attacks gives the Berserker something that no other class has, as well. And because it's a second extra attack, it scales well as you level. It may seem over powered at the beginning, but the Barbarian has a hard limit on the number of rages in a day, so it shouldn't become too much of an issue.
"Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. When your rage ends, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.
Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a short or long rest, the DC resets to 10."
I feel that this mechanic would give the berserker more-than-a-fair chance of frenzying without penalty once per short rest (up to an 80% chance of success at 3rd level; can always succeed by 9th level), but still discourages them from carelessly frenzying all the time.
That helps make the punishment more manageable but doesn't address the core mechanic's strength enough IMO. Part of the Berserker's problem is the usability restrictions on Frenzy, but part of their problem is that Frenzy just isn't all that high impact for an ability that's supposed to be so limited in usability.
Other than fatigue, the issue with the berserker is the poor scaling on the ability. Going from level 3 to level 17 its damage probably increases by 4-6 (strength 16->20, rage +2->+4). By comparison, over the same level range, Storm Herald (desert) gains +3 damage per target, Storm Herald (Sea) gains +2d6, and Zealot gains +7, and all three of those abilities have a better chance of actually taking effect (desert doesn't have an attack or save, sea is save half, zealot applies if any of your regular attacks hit) and work on the first round of your rage (frenzy can't be used round 1 because you already used your bonus action to rage).
Probably the easiest fix is to just change fatigue to something like 3d6 (nonlethal) damage. This gives a chance of passing out at the end of the fight, which is totally in theme, and is something a higher level character can more easily soak.
I may be a little late to the party with this thread, but with the dawning of optional/variant features in TCoE I came up with a possible replacement feature for the Frenzy which I think is pretty good without giving the barbarian unlimited free bonus action attacks.
Unyielding
3rd-level Berserker feature, which replaces the Frenzy feature
Your rage causes you to draw out strength to perform a flurry of attacks that would be exhausting under normal circumstances. Starting at 3rd level, while you are raging you can make a single melee weapon attack as a bonus action on each of your turns. You can make this bonus action attack a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses on a short or long rest.
If you score a critical hit on an attack roll made with a melee weapon while you have no uses of this feature remaining, you regain one use.
while this feature does limit the number of extra attacks you can make early on, it does scale with level and removes exhaustion altogether. Plus, I think having a "cleave" mechanic that lets you possibly regain a use is super flavorful for the berserker. In line with what others have said, I could also potentially see some sort of damage bonus, especially if limiting how many of these attacks can be made in a given combat encounter.
You see, I like the Berserker's feature as is. An additional attack is powerful, and the amount of damage scales as you level up for to the fact you will be ASIing, gaining magic weapons etc. The only possible change I would make to our would be to stop it taking a bonus action so that it didn't interfere with feats etc. Just giving them an extra attack would work for me. However, as a question of balance this may be too powerful, especially early on.
The bit which can really screw it up is the exhaustion. As a long rest is required to reduce exhaustion and even that only reduces it by ones level, as soon as you have more than that you are on really shakey ground. If you've done that due to multiple uses of frenzy, it's kinda of your own fault, but if you've gained a level or two from other things you could be blocked from using your core feature for several days...
For me, I would add an extra ability to the 3rd level along the lines of:
"Immediately following a short or long rest, you may use 1 or more hit dice to reduce your exhaustion level. Each hit die used in this way reduces your exhaustion level by one."
It may need to be limited in some manner to stop it being overpowered (like limiting to frenzy exhaustion only or limiting the number of levels). However, I think this would fix the core problem.
I'm not any kind of Barbarian expert, but one concept I really like that there is currently nothing available for is the idea of changing some weapon attributes. Make a Frenzied Barbarian able to dual wield weapons no one else can... something like:
"While in Frenzy, you can:
Wield two-handed weapons with one hand
Treat any weapons that lack the Heavy property as though they have the Light property
Ignore the Heavy property of any weapon that has the Heavy property (though they cannot be considered Light weapons, as above)."
This doesn't solve the exhaustion issue, though I think a class feature that simply states "After a short rest, you may reduce your exhaustion level by one, as though you had taken a long rest. You can only use this feature once per long rest" would go a long ways towards solving it.
Finally, if that still doesn't make it worthwhile (you've kinda turned them into Monks, except with a bonus weapon attack instead of FOB, and at a cost of exhaustion rather than ki, but still recharging on short rests), I wonder if a temporary boost to STR would do the trick. That could even increase with level, or maybe proficiency? Something along the lines of "While in Frenzy, you gain a bonus to your Strength score equal to your Proficiency bonus."
Nah, that's silly to mix proficiency BONUS with an ability SCORE. Instead we can rewrite as, "While in Frenzy, your Strength modifier increases by +1. This bonus increases at higher levels: +2 at sixth level, +3 at tenth level, and +4 at fourteenth level. This is not limited by ability score maximums."
Or heck, maybe just pick and choose some of all this. To summarize:
Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can:
Wield two-handed weapons with one hand
Treat any weapons that lack the Heavy property as though they have the Light property
Ignore the Heavy property of any weapon that has the Heavy property (though they cannot be considered Light weapons, as above).
Additionally, your Strength modifier increases by +1. This bonus increases at higher levels: +2 at sixth level, +3 at tenth level, and +4 at fourteenth level. This is not limited by ability score maximums. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
Breather
After a short rest, you may reduce your exhaustion level by one, as though you had taken a long rest. You can only use this feature once per long rest.
You see, I like the Berserker's feature as is. An additional attack is powerful, and the amount of damage scales as you level up for to the fact you will be ASIing, gaining magic weapons etc. The only possible change I would make to our would be to stop it taking a bonus action so that it didn't interfere with feats etc. Just giving them an extra attack would work for me. However, as a question of balance this may be too powerful, especially early on.
The bit which can really screw it up is the exhaustion. As a long rest is required to reduce exhaustion and even that only reduces it by ones level, as soon as you have more than that you are on really shakey ground. If you've done that due to multiple uses of frenzy, it's kinda of your own fault, but if you've gained a level or two from other things you could be blocked from using your core feature for several days...
For me, I would add an extra ability to the 3rd level along the lines of:
"Immediately following a short or long rest, you may use 1 or more hit dice to reduce your exhaustion level. Each hit die used in this way reduces your exhaustion level by one."
It may need to be limited in some manner to stop it being overpowered (like limiting to frenzy exhaustion only or limiting the number of levels). However, I think this would fix the core problem.
I like this idea. I think that limiting it to half your proficiency bonus uses per long rest would probably work. That limits it to a max of 3 and the usage of hit die keeps it thematically tied to your stamina. Alternatively, you could have it tied to half your constitution modifier rounded up (minimum of 1). Similar scaling, extra usages if you hit 20, and you control the scaling more with your ASIs.
I used the DC 10 CON check that increases by 5 each time Frenzy is used, but it only resets on a long rest. Barbarians are going to have a +3 to CON and they're proficient at CON saves, so even at level 1, they only have a 20% chance of failing the first check. If they get their CON up 18, then they can't fail the first check at level 13, so reseting on a short rest seemed to generous.
another user said always reckless while frenzy and I thought what if it's just:
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, whenever you use Reckless Attack you may attack an additional time.
This sounds like what a frenzy is to me. More attacks, less concern for your own safety. No exhaustion. No bonus action wasting. Just improving an existing barb skill. Idk. IMO barbs don't have enough attacks....or they need a goofy aoe whirlwind move lol.
Kind of late to this.... One thing to note is that the bonus action attack from Frenzy does not have any pre-conditions. You just get to use a bonus action to make a melee attack. You don't need to have used your attack action first, unlike two weapon fighting. You can use your primary action to do anything.
The assumption is that this will be used in addition to another melee weapon attack. But it doesn't require that. You have to be creative. How about using your action to shove someone and then the bonus melee attack to hit them while they are prone? Or at higher level you use your first attack (from Extra Attack) to knock them prone (which because you're raging, you do this at advantage) you use your next attack to grapple them while prone at advantage, then your bonus action follow up to whack them again. It frees up your action to do anything else you might want to do. It makes the intimidating presence a little more useful, because you can frighten someone first and then grapple them, giving you an extra edge to succeed because not only are you doing this at advantage due to rage, but they are frightened of you so their roll to oppose it is at disadvantage. You can knock them prone and then melee attack them twice on the same turn with advantage without having to use reckless attack.
That's just a few things you can do. You can also use an action to disengage and then move and then still be able to give an enemy an attack. You can use your action to dash. You can use your action to bash down a door, then smash the poor enemy who was cowering behind it with an attack. You can drink a potion, then whack someone with a weapon. You can activate a magical item, then hit someone with you greataxe... etc.
Could it be better? Yes. Personally the only fix I'd make is for the intimidating rage to have a duration vs having to use your action to continue it.
Kind of late to this.... One thing to note is that the bonus action attack from Frenzy does not have any pre-conditions. You just get to use a bonus action to make a melee attack. You don't need to have used your attack action first, unlike two weapon fighting. You can use your primary action to do anything.
The assumption is that this will be used in addition to another melee weapon attack. But it doesn't require that. You have to be creative. How about using your action to shove someone and then the bonus melee attack to hit them while they are prone? Or at higher level you use your first attack (from Extra Attack) to knock them prone (which because you're raging, you do this at advantage) you use your next attack to grapple them while prone at advantage, then your bonus action follow up to whack them again. It frees up your action to do anything else you might want to do. It makes the intimidating presence a little more useful, because you can frighten someone first and then grapple them, giving you an extra edge to succeed because not only are you doing this at advantage due to rage, but they are frightened of you so their roll to oppose it is at disadvantage. You can knock them prone and then melee attack them twice on the same turn with advantage without having to use reckless attack.
That's just a few things you can do. You can also use an action to disengage and then move and then still be able to give an enemy an attack. You can use your action to dash. You can use your action to bash down a door, then smash the poor enemy who was cowering behind it with an attack. You can drink a potion, then whack someone with a weapon. You can activate a magical item, then hit someone with you greataxe... etc.
Could it be better? Yes. Personally the only fix I'd make is for the intimidating rage to have a duration vs having to use your action to continue it.
Berserkers don't need help patching their action economy nearly as much as they need help being able to function for the rest of the day after using their core defining subclass feature. Level 10 rangers and level 9 celestial warlocks can deal with the problem just fine, but you shouldn't need to multiclass for your subclass to function.
I guess it depends on how badly the levels of exhaustion bother you. 1 level of exhaustion is merely annoying. Doesn't alter things too much. You can still fight, still rage...just go easy on the ability checks. Even 2 levels isn't completely incapacitating. You can still function. You just can't move as fast. The frenzy is one of those things designed for desperation/extreme circumstance use, I think. Though I think the idea of a free bonus action attack, freeing up your action does tend to become useful in situations you wouldn't expect. I played in a group where the berserker used their action to pick up and carry two downed party members out of danger, but attacking the enemy as a bonus action with each trip back into the melee first. It was a good use of the freed up action and still let them damage the enemy by recklessly attacking so they could maintain their rage. And they saved their party members to boot. But now that I think about it, giving them temp hitpoints when they frenzy would be another good fix. Like keep the exhaustion but make more happen with the frenzy to where it feels more worth the price-- like an extra ten feet of movement, temp hp equal to your level (or whatever) in addition to the bonus action attack.
How about a Save at the end of any frenzy? Roll a d20, if the result is strictly less than your Barbarian Level then you avoid exhaustion.
You could also do a CON save, DC 20. At early levels, it will be very difficult to avoid exhaustion but at later levels it will become less of a risk.
This feels like a fairly elegant fix. As some other have mentioned, maybe DC15 CON save the first time, then increasing by +5 each time you Frenzy (resetting on long rest). Either that, or an additional feature that reduces exhaustion levels more easily.
Maybe removing exhaustion on a short rest (once per day) with a CON check or save? Or something like, "When you finish a long rest while suffering from exhaustion, you can gamble reducing your exhaustion level by one as normal in order to reduce your exhaustion back to zero. Make a CON saving throw against DC of five times your exhaustion level. If you fail the check, you do not reduce your exhaustion level at all."
There's any number of ways to make the Exhaustion tick slower, or recover easier... but at the end of the day, they don't really address the problem that Exhaustion punishes the entire party as it progresses. In two ways:
At second level exhaustion, the character's speed becomes halved, slowing the whole party all day long if they stick together. Fifth level also completely halts the party in its tracks. Slowing the group is the first group-wide punishment for the Berserker using its class feature. No other subclass does this
The other way is less obvious: there's no good way to get rid of exhaustion, other than long resting (1 level, once per 24 hours) or Greater Restoration (1 level, once per 5th level spell slot and 100 GP). If the Barbarian frenzies more than once per day, they are taking the decision away from another player about how that 5th level spell slot is used that day, and costing the group 100 GP (or, dooming themself to very quickly exhausting past the point of usefully contributing to the group, and to the point of physically slowing the group down, see above). No other subclass does this.
We can play around with ways to shed Exhaustion more quickly, or have a chance to avoid it, but the fact remains.... it's inappropriate to use Exhaustion as a resource for a single character's core class feature, when it carries such significance for the entire group. The best Berserker fixes find alternatives to Exhaustion, rather than just finding new ways to avoid or recover from it.
I agree. It might be difficult to track. A way to do it would be to just ignore resistance while in the combat, but it takes away the fluff of dropping unconscious if you've "banked" lethal damage during the fight. Healing during the combat would also ruin the fluff, but in the end the result is the same.
Only compared to someone not making an BA attacks at all, which is part of the problem. It's not that difficult to find good uses for a bonus action in 5e.
Also you're comparing this to someone with no innate DPR boosters, while a number of Barb sublcasses do have some other way to enhance their damage that make Frenzy's edge a lot less than double.
That's the fundamental problem with Berserker. The stuff it gives you just isn't better enough compared to other subclasses given the downside Frenzy imparts. To the point that I think even if you only have one combat per day every day, Berserker vs Zealot isn't a clear win for the Berserker, especially at mid and higher levels (which I think is pretty telling).
I like the idea of a Barbarian that can go further beyond and push themselves to their limits. Berserker is clearly meant to call back to Frenzied Berserkers or just Rage from previous editions having downsides attached to it, but either Frenzy needs to be stronger or the Berserker needs a DPR enhancer that works in vanilla Rage too.
I like that it represents the character pushing themselves beyond their body's limits, so I do still like the option to use it at a cost. So I think it would be good to give the Berserker one free use per day, then inflict the exhaustion on future uses. That way the player can at least comfortably use it once, but still has the option to push themselves past their limit to take on more combats.
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Here's my revision of Frenzy:
I feel that this mechanic would give the berserker more-than-a-fair chance of frenzying without penalty once per short rest (up to an 80% chance of success at 3rd level; can always succeed by 9th level), but still discourages them from carelessly frenzying all the time.
Personally, I would say keep the punishment the same, but modify the attack. Much higher reward for the level of exhaustion, and creates a better example of tiring out after a "frenzy".
Frenzy
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can go into a frenzy when you rage. If you do so, for the duration of your rage you can make two weapon attacks as a bonus action on each of your turns after this one. If you use a ranged attack, the weapon must possess the Thrown property. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion.
The two bonus action attacks gives the Berserker something that no other class has, as well. And because it's a second extra attack, it scales well as you level. It may seem over powered at the beginning, but the Barbarian has a hard limit on the number of rages in a day, so it shouldn't become too much of an issue.
That helps make the punishment more manageable but doesn't address the core mechanic's strength enough IMO. Part of the Berserker's problem is the usability restrictions on Frenzy, but part of their problem is that Frenzy just isn't all that high impact for an ability that's supposed to be so limited in usability.
Other than fatigue, the issue with the berserker is the poor scaling on the ability. Going from level 3 to level 17 its damage probably increases by 4-6 (strength 16->20, rage +2->+4). By comparison, over the same level range, Storm Herald (desert) gains +3 damage per target, Storm Herald (Sea) gains +2d6, and Zealot gains +7, and all three of those abilities have a better chance of actually taking effect (desert doesn't have an attack or save, sea is save half, zealot applies if any of your regular attacks hit) and work on the first round of your rage (frenzy can't be used round 1 because you already used your bonus action to rage).
Probably the easiest fix is to just change fatigue to something like 3d6 (nonlethal) damage. This gives a chance of passing out at the end of the fight, which is totally in theme, and is something a higher level character can more easily soak.
I may be a little late to the party with this thread, but with the dawning of optional/variant features in TCoE I came up with a possible replacement feature for the Frenzy which I think is pretty good without giving the barbarian unlimited free bonus action attacks.
while this feature does limit the number of extra attacks you can make early on, it does scale with level and removes exhaustion altogether. Plus, I think having a "cleave" mechanic that lets you possibly regain a use is super flavorful for the berserker. In line with what others have said, I could also potentially see some sort of damage bonus, especially if limiting how many of these attacks can be made in a given combat encounter.
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I like it!
You see, I like the Berserker's feature as is. An additional attack is powerful, and the amount of damage scales as you level up for to the fact you will be ASIing, gaining magic weapons etc. The only possible change I would make to our would be to stop it taking a bonus action so that it didn't interfere with feats etc. Just giving them an extra attack would work for me. However, as a question of balance this may be too powerful, especially early on.
The bit which can really screw it up is the exhaustion. As a long rest is required to reduce exhaustion and even that only reduces it by ones level, as soon as you have more than that you are on really shakey ground. If you've done that due to multiple uses of frenzy, it's kinda of your own fault, but if you've gained a level or two from other things you could be blocked from using your core feature for several days...
For me, I would add an extra ability to the 3rd level along the lines of:
"Immediately following a short or long rest, you may use 1 or more hit dice to reduce your exhaustion level. Each hit die used in this way reduces your exhaustion level by one."
It may need to be limited in some manner to stop it being overpowered (like limiting to frenzy exhaustion only or limiting the number of levels). However, I think this would fix the core problem.
I'm not any kind of Barbarian expert, but one concept I really like that there is currently nothing available for is the idea of changing some weapon attributes. Make a Frenzied Barbarian able to dual wield weapons no one else can... something like:
"While in Frenzy, you can:
This doesn't solve the exhaustion issue, though I think a class feature that simply states "After a short rest, you may reduce your exhaustion level by one, as though you had taken a long rest. You can only use this feature once per long rest" would go a long ways towards solving it.
Finally, if that still doesn't make it worthwhile (you've kinda turned them into Monks, except with a bonus weapon attack instead of FOB, and at a cost of exhaustion rather than ki, but still recharging on short rests), I wonder if a temporary boost to STR would do the trick. That could even increase with level, or maybe proficiency?
Something along the lines of "While in Frenzy, you gain a bonus to your Strength score equal to your Proficiency bonus."Nah, that's silly to mix proficiency BONUS with an ability SCORE. Instead we can rewrite as, "While in Frenzy, your Strength modifier increases by +1. This bonus increases at higher levels: +2 at sixth level, +3 at tenth level, and +4 at fourteenth level. This is not limited by ability score maximums."
Or heck, maybe just pick and choose some of all this. To summarize:
I like this idea. I think that limiting it to half your proficiency bonus uses per long rest would probably work. That limits it to a max of 3 and the usage of hit die keeps it thematically tied to your stamina. Alternatively, you could have it tied to half your constitution modifier rounded up (minimum of 1). Similar scaling, extra usages if you hit 20, and you control the scaling more with your ASIs.
I used the DC 10 CON check that increases by 5 each time Frenzy is used, but it only resets on a long rest. Barbarians are going to have a +3 to CON and they're proficient at CON saves, so even at level 1, they only have a 20% chance of failing the first check. If they get their CON up 18, then they can't fail the first check at level 13, so reseting on a short rest seemed to generous.
another user said always reckless while frenzy and I thought what if it's just:
Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, whenever you use Reckless Attack you may attack an additional time.
This sounds like what a frenzy is to me. More attacks, less concern for your own safety. No exhaustion. No bonus action wasting. Just improving an existing barb skill. Idk. IMO barbs don't have enough attacks....or they need a goofy aoe whirlwind move lol.
Kind of late to this.... One thing to note is that the bonus action attack from Frenzy does not have any pre-conditions. You just get to use a bonus action to make a melee attack. You don't need to have used your attack action first, unlike two weapon fighting. You can use your primary action to do anything.
The assumption is that this will be used in addition to another melee weapon attack. But it doesn't require that. You have to be creative. How about using your action to shove someone and then the bonus melee attack to hit them while they are prone? Or at higher level you use your first attack (from Extra Attack) to knock them prone (which because you're raging, you do this at advantage) you use your next attack to grapple them while prone at advantage, then your bonus action follow up to whack them again. It frees up your action to do anything else you might want to do. It makes the intimidating presence a little more useful, because you can frighten someone first and then grapple them, giving you an extra edge to succeed because not only are you doing this at advantage due to rage, but they are frightened of you so their roll to oppose it is at disadvantage. You can knock them prone and then melee attack them twice on the same turn with advantage without having to use reckless attack.
That's just a few things you can do. You can also use an action to disengage and then move and then still be able to give an enemy an attack. You can use your action to dash. You can use your action to bash down a door, then smash the poor enemy who was cowering behind it with an attack. You can drink a potion, then whack someone with a weapon. You can activate a magical item, then hit someone with you greataxe... etc.
Could it be better? Yes. Personally the only fix I'd make is for the intimidating rage to have a duration vs having to use your action to continue it.
Berserkers don't need help patching their action economy nearly as much as they need help being able to function for the rest of the day after using their core defining subclass feature. Level 10 rangers and level 9 celestial warlocks can deal with the problem just fine, but you shouldn't need to multiclass for your subclass to function.
I guess it depends on how badly the levels of exhaustion bother you. 1 level of exhaustion is merely annoying. Doesn't alter things too much. You can still fight, still rage...just go easy on the ability checks. Even 2 levels isn't completely incapacitating. You can still function. You just can't move as fast. The frenzy is one of those things designed for desperation/extreme circumstance use, I think. Though I think the idea of a free bonus action attack, freeing up your action does tend to become useful in situations you wouldn't expect. I played in a group where the berserker used their action to pick up and carry two downed party members out of danger, but attacking the enemy as a bonus action with each trip back into the melee first. It was a good use of the freed up action and still let them damage the enemy by recklessly attacking so they could maintain their rage. And they saved their party members to boot. But now that I think about it, giving them temp hitpoints when they frenzy would be another good fix. Like keep the exhaustion but make more happen with the frenzy to where it feels more worth the price-- like an extra ten feet of movement, temp hp equal to your level (or whatever) in addition to the bonus action attack.
How about a Save at the end of any frenzy? Roll a d20, if the result is strictly less than your Barbarian Level then you avoid exhaustion.
You could also do a CON save, DC 20. At early levels, it will be very difficult to avoid exhaustion but at later levels it will become less of a risk.
This feels like a fairly elegant fix. As some other have mentioned, maybe DC15 CON save the first time, then increasing by +5 each time you Frenzy (resetting on long rest). Either that, or an additional feature that reduces exhaustion levels more easily.
Maybe removing exhaustion on a short rest (once per day) with a CON check or save? Or something like, "When you finish a long rest while suffering from exhaustion, you can gamble reducing your exhaustion level by one as normal in order to reduce your exhaustion back to zero. Make a CON saving throw against DC of five times your exhaustion level. If you fail the check, you do not reduce your exhaustion level at all."
There's any number of ways to make the Exhaustion tick slower, or recover easier... but at the end of the day, they don't really address the problem that Exhaustion punishes the entire party as it progresses. In two ways:
At second level exhaustion, the character's speed becomes halved, slowing the whole party all day long if they stick together. Fifth level also completely halts the party in its tracks. Slowing the group is the first group-wide punishment for the Berserker using its class feature. No other subclass does this
The other way is less obvious: there's no good way to get rid of exhaustion, other than long resting (1 level, once per 24 hours) or Greater Restoration (1 level, once per 5th level spell slot and 100 GP). If the Barbarian frenzies more than once per day, they are taking the decision away from another player about how that 5th level spell slot is used that day, and costing the group 100 GP (or, dooming themself to very quickly exhausting past the point of usefully contributing to the group, and to the point of physically slowing the group down, see above). No other subclass does this.
We can play around with ways to shed Exhaustion more quickly, or have a chance to avoid it, but the fact remains.... it's inappropriate to use Exhaustion as a resource for a single character's core class feature, when it carries such significance for the entire group. The best Berserker fixes find alternatives to Exhaustion, rather than just finding new ways to avoid or recover from it.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.