As everyone knows, Frenzy Barbarian is not well liked because of the exhaustion given after the end of its Frenzied Rage, which basically means you can only use it 1 a day without having a really bad time afterward. I've seen alot of ideas about changing what it cost to use, or giving another means of dealing with exhaustion. I've finally found an idea that I think will really interest me and my players in actually playing Frenzy Barb.
Really simple; you take damage from pushing your body beyond its limits with this rage. The question is how much? I want it to somewhat scale so its not completely negligible a few levels down the line, but I dont want it to be the same as it currently is, where in you are almost forced to use it only once per day. Im thinking it would be good if it dealt damage for how many rounds you raged to keep it simple. I was thinking per attack, but that would be too many numbers to deal with.
What do you think would be an appropriate amount of damage for a frenzied barbarian to take after their rage ends to balance a bonus action attack, but not so much they save it for once a day?
I like the frenzy die idea. 3d4 damage after a fight can hurt pretty bad if the Barb doesnt control themselves. I think I'll use that one. The CON save one is pretty good too. I might change dc for how many rounds were spent raging.
My houserule has been that at the end of their Frenzy they got to make a Con Save to avoid the Exhaustion. It started at DC 15 and went up by 2 for each Frenzy that day.
I have very recently switched to a rule where the first Frenzy of the day is free, and only the subsequent ones come with Exhaustion, however they are immune to Exhaustion while Frenzied.
I went with the route of a fixed DC 20 Con save at the end of the frenzy. Reason being, it's a fixed point that as you level becomes easier to pass but still high enough it's still possible to pass.
Though I do like the idea of having the DC increase by the more you use the feature, I might play around with the DC to accommodate that. But I also give them the ability; "once per day during a short rest you can lower your exhaustion level by 1," to accommodate the higher DC. This wasn't the only change I made to the berserker for my group, but I will say it hasn't had much to any play testing other than number crunching since my group rarely plays barbarians for some reason.
As everyone knows, Frenzy Barbarian is not well liked because of the exhaustion given after the end of its Frenzied Rage
I like it, I think it perfectly fits what they're supposed to represent; pushing you beyond your normal limits absolutely should tucker you out. 😉
The issue for improving it is, what exact problem are you actually trying to solve?
The problem with swapping for a health penalty is that most characters and parties are already geared towards healing, and any amount you set will quickly become negligible given the enormous amount of health your average Barbarian will accumulate. I'm also not a fan of Constitution saves as a solution, as Barbarians are usually going to have a +5 to that save from level 1, and it's only going to get higher, to the point that it may be become basically impossible to fail, even with a high DC, as there are a lot of ways to boost saves as well.
If your campaign is running, or is going to run, into problems because the party rarely (if ever) has enough downtime for the Berserker to clear their exhaustion afterwards, then what you might need is for them to be able to do-so more easily, e.g- if they can long rest for at least 10 hours they can clear two levels of exhaustion.
If your main issue is that you find exhaustion too debilitating in a very combat heavy campaign, then you could have the Berserker ignore one or more levels of exhaustion either as standard, or while raging. Personally if a house-rule to be used, I'd lean towards some combination of exhaustion mitigating and clearing more like:
Tireless Rage
Starting at 5th level, if you have between one and five levels of exhaustion, you may treat your level of exhaustion as being one lower while raging for the purpose of determining the effect(s). Additionally, starting from 11th level you may remove up to two levels of exhaustion after completing a long rest.
The 5th level boost means it comes at the same times that Frenzied Rage scales down from being a +100% damage boost to +50% damage as a result of gaining an extra attack as standard, and allows you to shrug off the worse penalties for a bit longer. You'll still want to find a few days to fully rest, but can maintain several days more easily.
The 11th level ability makes it easier to clear exhaustion; if you're running a campaign where the players won't have chances to rest, you could always move this part to a lower level if you really have to, but I think 11 is reasonable personally.
Basically at earlier levels this remains a strong once per long rest type ability that you can overextend if you need to, then from 5th to 10th it's a sort-of twice per long rest, and 11th onwards it becomes a kind of 3-4 times per long rest ability, which means it scales a bit like similar abilities, without doing so cost-free (keeping in mind that Berserkers have some really good later level abilities).
Again though, personally I'm fine with the way the rules work already; part of the issue is campaigns should have downtime and opportunities to rest. Travel in Faerün isn't quick or easy, so whether you're walking, taking horses (or horse and cart) or sailing, it will take days to get to most places, during which you can take multiple long rests as the party camps, stops at roadside inns/villages/towns etc., and groups should be allowed some distractions and days off between side-quests. Having to ration Frenzied Rage in gruelling dungeons or huge fights is just a part of the strategy of using the Berserker sub-class.
For any house rule it's important also to remember that a Barbarian can only go into a Rage so many times, and Frenzied Rage is very specifically not intended to replace all of them; a Berserker player should absolutely be choosing when to Rage and when to Frenzied Rage, if it's made too easy to just use over and over then it will eclipse similar static rage bonuses (Storm Herald and Zealot) that are about prolonged damage rather than bursts of damage when you need it most.
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As everyone knows, Frenzy Barbarian is not well liked because of the exhaustion given after the end of its Frenzied Rage, which basically means you can only use it 1 a day without having a really bad time afterward. I've seen alot of ideas about changing what it cost to use, or giving another means of dealing with exhaustion. I've finally found an idea that I think will really interest me and my players in actually playing Frenzy Barb.
Really simple; you take damage from pushing your body beyond its limits with this rage. The question is how much? I want it to somewhat scale so its not completely negligible a few levels down the line, but I dont want it to be the same as it currently is, where in you are almost forced to use it only once per day. Im thinking it would be good if it dealt damage for how many rounds you raged to keep it simple. I was thinking per attack, but that would be too many numbers to deal with.
What do you think would be an appropriate amount of damage for a frenzied barbarian to take after their rage ends to balance a bonus action attack, but not so much they save it for once a day?
My Knee Jerk reactions would be either:
1) take damage equal to rage bonus damage
2) assign a damage dice equal to a monk martial arts dice of the same level (so a level 4 Barbarian takes 1d4 damage but a level 5 barbaian takes 1d6)
3) no damage but allow a Cons save (DC15) to avoid the exhuastion
I like the frenzy die idea. 3d4 damage after a fight can hurt pretty bad if the Barb doesnt control themselves. I think I'll use that one. The CON save one is pretty good too. I might change dc for how many rounds were spent raging.
My houserule has been that at the end of their Frenzy they got to make a Con Save to avoid the Exhaustion. It started at DC 15 and went up by 2 for each Frenzy that day.
I have very recently switched to a rule where the first Frenzy of the day is free, and only the subsequent ones come with Exhaustion, however they are immune to Exhaustion while Frenzied.
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I went with the route of a fixed DC 20 Con save at the end of the frenzy. Reason being, it's a fixed point that as you level becomes easier to pass but still high enough it's still possible to pass.
Though I do like the idea of having the DC increase by the more you use the feature, I might play around with the DC to accommodate that. But I also give them the ability; "once per day during a short rest you can lower your exhaustion level by 1," to accommodate the higher DC. This wasn't the only change I made to the berserker for my group, but I will say it hasn't had much to any play testing other than number crunching since my group rarely plays barbarians for some reason.
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I like it, I think it perfectly fits what they're supposed to represent; pushing you beyond your normal limits absolutely should tucker you out. 😉
The issue for improving it is, what exact problem are you actually trying to solve?
The problem with swapping for a health penalty is that most characters and parties are already geared towards healing, and any amount you set will quickly become negligible given the enormous amount of health your average Barbarian will accumulate. I'm also not a fan of Constitution saves as a solution, as Barbarians are usually going to have a +5 to that save from level 1, and it's only going to get higher, to the point that it may be become basically impossible to fail, even with a high DC, as there are a lot of ways to boost saves as well.
If your campaign is running, or is going to run, into problems because the party rarely (if ever) has enough downtime for the Berserker to clear their exhaustion afterwards, then what you might need is for them to be able to do-so more easily, e.g- if they can long rest for at least 10 hours they can clear two levels of exhaustion.
If your main issue is that you find exhaustion too debilitating in a very combat heavy campaign, then you could have the Berserker ignore one or more levels of exhaustion either as standard, or while raging. Personally if a house-rule to be used, I'd lean towards some combination of exhaustion mitigating and clearing more like:
The 5th level boost means it comes at the same times that Frenzied Rage scales down from being a +100% damage boost to +50% damage as a result of gaining an extra attack as standard, and allows you to shrug off the worse penalties for a bit longer. You'll still want to find a few days to fully rest, but can maintain several days more easily.
The 11th level ability makes it easier to clear exhaustion; if you're running a campaign where the players won't have chances to rest, you could always move this part to a lower level if you really have to, but I think 11 is reasonable personally.
Basically at earlier levels this remains a strong once per long rest type ability that you can overextend if you need to, then from 5th to 10th it's a sort-of twice per long rest, and 11th onwards it becomes a kind of 3-4 times per long rest ability, which means it scales a bit like similar abilities, without doing so cost-free (keeping in mind that Berserkers have some really good later level abilities).
Again though, personally I'm fine with the way the rules work already; part of the issue is campaigns should have downtime and opportunities to rest. Travel in Faerün isn't quick or easy, so whether you're walking, taking horses (or horse and cart) or sailing, it will take days to get to most places, during which you can take multiple long rests as the party camps, stops at roadside inns/villages/towns etc., and groups should be allowed some distractions and days off between side-quests. Having to ration Frenzied Rage in gruelling dungeons or huge fights is just a part of the strategy of using the Berserker sub-class.
For any house rule it's important also to remember that a Barbarian can only go into a Rage so many times, and Frenzied Rage is very specifically not intended to replace all of them; a Berserker player should absolutely be choosing when to Rage and when to Frenzied Rage, if it's made too easy to just use over and over then it will eclipse similar static rage bonuses (Storm Herald and Zealot) that are about prolonged damage rather than bursts of damage when you need it most.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.