WotC advice: Disallow the Frenzied Berserker Prestige Class?

Matafuego · Sep 16, 2006

Hello everybody!!

That is the last advice WoTC gives in their latest "Save my Game" column: "PCs with Excessive Firepower".

There's no denying that the Frenzied Berserker is a powerful prestige class in certain combinations. Along with controlling the amount and power of treasure in the campaign, it's also the DM's responsibility to control the level of power that's available through prestige classes. If one is causing problems, disallow it. It's not fair to just take it away, of course, because the character earned the XPs. Allow him to replace the Frenzied Berserker with a level of something else.

The rest of the column is very good for any DM that has reached high (14+) levels for the first time ( http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20060915a ) since it guides you through the very different encounters and encounter results (always related them to the treasure they have, which is, supposedly, larger than normal).

It's just that last point that irks me...
What will be next?
I know Frenzied Berserker is a very powerful class... shouldn't it be errata'd or something instead of saying "do not use it"?

What's your opinion about it?
And about the rest of the article?

Thanks a lot for reading.

Caliban · Sep 16, 2006

Frenzied berserker showed up once in my campaign, on an NPC. After that, it was banned. It's a poorly thought out, overpowered class, that makes the PC a danger to his friends as well as his enemies.

It almost forces to the other characters to devote a portion of their resources to controlling/stopping the berserker when they are in a frenzy, or run the risk of getting killed by their own comrade in every dangerous fight.

Fat Daddy · Sep 16, 2006

Yep

Well Matefuego,

What can I say? I agree with you, it irks me too. This is WotC saying, "Hey there, we made a totally unbalanced class to make the page count for our book. Thanks for buying the book with your hard earned money, but don't use the class."
They should definitely errata the class into balance or give us a refund...

On the other side, if you are playing a high power or gestalt campaign it might be okay. Personally, I disallow a lot of classes if I think they will disrupt party balance, but it just seems different when the publisher disallows them.

Felon · Sep 16, 2006

Fat Daddy said:
What can I say? I agree with you, it irks me too. This is WotC saying, "Hey there, we made a totally unbalanced class to make the page count for our book. Thanks for buying the book with your hard earned money, but don't use the class."
They should definitely errata the class into balance or give us a refund...

On the other side, if you are playing a high power or gestalt campaign it might be okay. Personally, I disallow a lot of classes if I think they will disrupt party balance, but it just seems different when the publisher disallows them.

WotC is actually not composed of formians or any other hive-minded creature. Maybe the folks who edited the Complete Warrior think it's fine while this article's author thinks it's problematic.

More to the point, the advice isn't that the FB should be utterly banned, but rather than some PrC's are inappropriate for some campaigns. Prestige classes were never portrayed as something a player is entitled to.

JustKim · Sep 16, 2006

Fat Daddy said:
This is WotC saying, "Hey there, we made a totally unbalanced class to make the page count for our book. Thanks for buying the book with your hard earned money, but don't use the class."

This is not WotC saying anything. This is Jason Nelson-Brown writing an article to help DMs with out of control PCs and using the Frenzied Berserker as an example in passing. No responsibility to errata the class is implied. If the article wasn't posted on the WotC site, would this even be an issue?

Matafuego · Sep 16, 2006

JustKim said:
If the article wasn't posted on the WotC site, would this even be an issue?

Nope.
But that's precisely why this is an issue for me.
When it's on the WotC site it speaks to me as FROM WotC.

If you saw an article on the WotC site saying: "Don't buy MM5 it's totally flawed" (fantasy name cause I don't want this discussion going on about some existing book

)
Is it the same as reading it on someone else's site?

It isn't for me. I don't think it would be the same for you (though there I'm guessing, I don't know you).
So, if I read on the WotC website "The Frenzied Berserker should be disallowed", I get worried.

Gold Roger · Sep 16, 2006

I think it should be kept in mind that PrC's are not only a tool of PC obtion, they are also a DMing tool. It's obvious that some PrC's are designed to make for colorfull opponents and due to various reason would be disruptive in many players.

I'd pool the Frenzied Berserker in that group, together with Ur-Priests, Blighter, Forsakers and all BoVD PrC's. While the right group/player can make these work, they just wheren't intended for PC's.

Hussar · Sep 16, 2006

Matafuego said:
Nope.
*snip*
So, if I read on the WotC website "The Frenzied Berserker should be disallowed", I get worried.

I would too, if that's what the article actually said. However, what the writer actually said was that if a given PrC is giving you problems, in the same way that a spell or a magic item or a feat might give you problems, you as the DM should disallow it in your game. In other words, it's simply reaffirming the standard line that a DM is the final authority for what should and should not be allowed in a game.

He could very easily have picked a different PrC, but, let's face it, Fren Bezerker tends to get a lot of airplay because it is pretty high on the power band.